


un bateau frêle

by meyeri



Category: Charlie's Angels (2019)
Genre: F/F, Post Movie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:34:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 26,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28805139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meyeri/pseuds/meyeri
Summary: Afterwards, after they leave the castle and the other Angels and Hodak’s body behind in Chamonix, after they drop Elena off at Angel Bootcamp (not its real name) and spend two days filing their mop-up reports and submitting to Saint’s post-mission ministrations, Bos shows up on the front porch of Sabina’s Echo Park bungalow with flat whites and croissants.
Relationships: Jane Kano/Sabina Wilson
Comments: 9
Kudos: 40





	1. Los Angeles and Martinique

**Author's Note:**

> Happy 2021! I am continuing my streak of posting self-indulgent fics in tiny wlw fandoms. This fic is 75% written already, for anyone who's afraid of WIPs. I'll be posting parts every week or so as I re-read and edit it.
> 
> Content warnings:  
> 1\. Non-graphic descriptions of fights/sparring/training (I mean, it's Charlie's Angels): I would describe them as way more tame than anything shown in the film, and written by someone who doesn't actually know anything about hand-to-hand or martial arts at all. Nothing gory.  
> 2\. Descriptions of Jane processing and trying to deal with the canonical death of her mentor, as shown in the film (I hated that they just glossed over something so traumatic). Occasionally she's not great at the processing; proceed accordingly.
> 
> Credits:  
> 1\. The title is from Arthur Rimbaud's _Le bateau ivre_ and roughly translates to "a fragile boat".  
> 2\. The phrase "emotional compost" comes from gyzym and his brilliant story "What We Pretend We Can't See," which I revisit at least once a year.  
> -

Afterwards, after they leave the castle and the other Angels and Hodak’s body behind in Chamonix, after they drop Elena off at Angel Bootcamp (not its real name) and spend two days filing their mop-up reports and submitting to Saint’s post-mission ministrations, Bos shows up on the front porch of Sabina’s Echo Park bungalow with flat whites and croissants.

It’s Jane who answers the door, because Sabina is still asleep.

“Good morning,” Bos says, looking utterly unsurprised to see her. She is carrying, Jane notices, _three_ coffees.

“Good morning,” Jane says, striving for nonchalance by awkwardly hanging on the doorjamb. “Are… you here for Sabina?”

Bos gives her a look. “I’m here for both of you,” she says, stepping past Jane into the foyer, heels clicking against the talavera tile. “Is Sabina still asleep?”

Jane has worked with a lot of Bosleys in her time at the Townsend Agency but Edgar had been her primary one, her mentor, the one she trusted unconditionally, the one who knew her almost better than she knew herself. She still doesn’t know that much about Sabina and this Bosley’s relationship, but judging from the latter’s no-nonsense navigation of Sabina’s foyer and resigned attitude towards Sabina’s sleeping patterns, she can make an educated guess.

A tiny, horrible, small part of her is jealous, resents that Sabina still has her Bosley, but that Jane doesn’t have hers. 

“Yes,” Jane says, shoving the thought down into the pit of her stomach. Bosley has, by now, made her way through Sabina’s sunny kitchen and out the side door onto the porch. Jane follows, because what else is she supposed to do. “Do you want me to wake her up?”

“Nah,” Bos says, settling herself down into one of the patio chairs. “I’m here to talk to you too.” She gestures at the empty chair and meets Jane’s eyes evenly; it isn’t, Jane sees, a request.

So it’s that kind of visit, then.

“I talked to Saint,” Bos says, after Jane has gotten halfway through her croissant (and where Bos managed to get a croissant like this—flaky and buttery and crunchy and soft all at once, just like the ones she and Edgar used to get around the corner from his flat in Montparnasse—in godforsaken _Los Angeles_ , Jane has no idea).

“Oh?” Jane says, setting her coffee down and wiping her fingers on the paper napkin.

Bos gestures, a half-aborted little motion like she wants to reach out to Jane, to take her hand across the table, before she seems to think better of it.

“Jane,” Bos says instead, and for the first time this morning Jane sees a flash of uncertainty, a slight twist in her lips. “You know as well as I do that officially, Angels and Bosleys—and Saints, for that matter—aren’t supposed to form personal relationships. It’s policy that we should all be able to work equally well with anyone in the Agency, in any combination at any time.” Jane stays silent; of course she knows. “Most of us also all know that humans can’t really do that. Saint and I, we know how much Edgar meant to you. Losing your Bosley like that, especially the way you lost Edgar, is so much worse than just losing a colleague.” 

Jane stares at the milk foam draped like a veil around the edges of her coffee cup and says nothing. “When it happened to me, when my Bosley was killed, I cried for weeks,” Bos adds softly. “Just randomly, at nothing. Unprovoked. And I was furious at myself, even though it wasn’t my fault.”

Jane _does_ look up at that, in shock, and inadvertently meets Bosley’s eyes. Everyone knows she used to be an Angel, but this is the first time Jane has heard her reference it outright. And Jane hadn’t known about her Bosley; that part of the story isn’t included in the lore that’s been passed down from Angel to Angel.

Bos holds Jane’s gaze for a beat before she clears her throat; her eyes are sad but uncompromising. “So. Saint and I are recommending you for one week of bereavement leave, on top of the mandatory shore leave I’m here to formally put you and Sabina on.” Her voice is businesslike but kind. 

Jane’s stomach sinks. Standard shore leave is two weeks. “You can’t bench me for three weeks,” she says, trying to keep her voice even and only partially succeeding. The prospect of three weeks of no work—of no structure to her day, of no distractions—stretches out before her like a vast and terrifying murky marsh, one that Jane has no intention of exploring. 

“It’s not a request, Jane,” Bos says. “You know the policy. Two weeks of shore leave after all major jobs, otherwise things get weird. And I’d certainly classify Calisto as a major job. Go somewhere—go visit your parents, or pick one of our safehouses that’s not in use. Rent a hotel in Tokyo or go camping in Yosemite, whatever you want. Go alone, or take Sabina—she’ll be at loose ends for two weeks too.”

Jane ignores the Sabina comment. “But I’m already doing mandatory therapy with Saint,” she says instead, although she knows there’s no point.

“Which is why your bereavement leave is one week and not two,” Bos says firmly. 

Jane opens her mouth, ready to argue more, but out of the corner of her eye she sees Sabina appear in the kitchen, looking sleep-muzzy but still lethal. She’s wearing tiny sleep shorts and a white tank top; the muscles of her shoulders stand out as she runs a hand through her hair, unselfconscious, feet bare on the tile.

“Bos?” she asks, blinking at them in the sunlight, hair sticking up all around her head.

Jane’s mouth has gone dry, the way it has been doing recently, and her stomach does that thing that it’s also been doing recently, that thing that Jane is very deliberately not thinking about directly. Jane loses the thread of her argument with Bosley.

“Good morning, Sabina,” Bos says. Jane tears her eyes away in time to see Bos flick her gaze between the two of them—twice, three times, like she’s making a mental connection.

Shit.

“Oh, are those the croissants from Petit Ansel?” Sabina is asking, sleepiness abandoned and suddenly hyper-focused on the bag on the table. She hops out onto the patio, feet pale in the sunlight, and perches on the edge of Jane’s chair to grab the third croissant. “And a flat white, my god, you’re an angel,” Sabina says, taking half the croissant in one bite.

“Not anymore,” Bosley says, and Jane is shocked at the teasing lilt in her voice.

Sabina isn’t, because she just snorts a laugh. “Touché,” she mutters through her pastry. “God that’s good.” She looks, for the first time, between Jane and Bosley, and cocks her head. “Shore leave?” she hazards a guess.

“Shore leave,” Jane confirms, sounding sulky despite herself. But when Sabina grins at her and raises her eyebrows in invitation, Jane, for some reason, forgets why she’d been dreading it.

\------

The thing is, Jane can’t really explain how she’d ended up in Sabina’s house after the Calisto job.

They’d landed on the LA airstrip and Elena had been whisked off to the Compound, where ten months of boot camp and training awaited her, and Jane and Sabina had been whisked off to Central Ops, where five hours of debriefings and two hours of physicals awaited them. Jane doesn’t remember most of the day, although she does know that her briefings were perfectly comprehensive and that Saint had done something really wretched to her ankle in the name of “fixing” it. 

At the end of the day Sabina had found Jane sitting outside Saint’s office, staring into space watching the orange glow of the sunset over the Pacific, ankle throbbing from where Saint had poked and prodded it.

“Ahm finking hrah-meh,” Sabina had said, bewilderingly, startling Jane out of her reverie. (Pity party? Piteous reverie?)

“Excuse me?”

Sabina grimaced, pointing at her mouth. The grimace moved only half her face. “Nofacay,” she said. Novacaine.

“Ah,” Jane had said, wincing in sympathy. “Dental?”

“Hodah crahked ma molar, ah-harently,” Sabina said with an eyeroll. “You?”

“Ankle’s sprained but not broken,” Jane said. “Hurts like a bitch, though. How’s your shoulder?”

“Healing,” Sabina said, with a half shrug. “So... hrah-men?” She paused, frowning. “Jahanese souh?”

“Ramen,” Jane interpreted.

Sabina nodded.

“That… would be easy on your tooth,” Jane had ventured eventually, when Sabina had just continued staring at her, as if waiting for an answer.

Sabina rolled her eyes and dangled her car keys in front of Jane. “You cahm-ing?” she had asked, and Jane apparently was.

\------

Sabina’s novacaine wore off halfway through dinner, thank god. They didn’t really talk much, both of them still coming down from the job and the debrief; Jane was grateful for the silence and also, shockingly, for the companionship. Something about sharing this meal, watching Sabina inelegantly slurp her soup and occasionally dribble a noodle down her front (“Stop lah-hing, only hahf ma mouf works”) managed to settle her, in a way that Jane rarely settled so quickly after big jobs.

The beer and sake, indulgences she didn’t usually allow herself—“Alcohol slows your body’s healing, as well as your reflexes,” said Edgar’s voice in her head—were probably helping too.

At the end of the meal, right as Jane was trying to work up the energy to start dreading her return to the Agency barracks, Sabina leaned back in her chair and declared, “So, I don’t know about you, but I need a shower, and also wine. In that order.” She met Jane’s eyes across the table. Sabina was holding it together still, but Jane could see exhaustion seeping in along the cracks of her facade, the faint grimace of pain now that the drugs were wearing off. “Look, I hate staying at the Compound. I have a place in Echo Park that has both a shower and wine in it, and an extra bedroom. You coming?”

And Jane apparently was.

\------

“So shore leave,” Sabina says, after Bosley departs.

“Yeah,” Jane says, lacing up her sneakers. She needs to run, and she needs to run _now_. There’s too much reckless emotion skittering under her skin for her to stay still for much longer. Keeping her head down by her knees as she starts to stretch, she adds, “And a week of bereavement, for me.”

Sabina is silent, but Jane feels her presence come up beside her, feels Sabina’s warm hand on her shoulder. “I thought maybe that’s what you and Bos were talking about,” Sabina says eventually.

Jane says nothing.

“Have a good run,” Sabina says softly, squeezing Jane’s shoulder before dropping her hand. 

Jane straightens and hears the invitation leave her mouth before her brain can even process what she’s doing.

“I was gonna go and do some drills up at Angels Point,” Jane says. “Unironically.” She eyes Sabina. “You coming?”

Sabina apparently is.

Neither of them is at 100 percent yet, so they take the streets at an easy jog and cycle through basic bodyweight drills at half power once they reach the park. Jane watches Sabina out of the corner of her eye, sees that she’s still favoring her shoulder, feels Sabina’s frustration when she runs her hands through her hair after an aborted push-up rep.

“Don’t push it so far it impairs the healing,” she says to Sabina before she can help herself, feeling the weight of Edgar’s words in her mouth.

Sabina glares at her, irritation and pain chasing themselves onto her face. “That’s rich, coming from you and your insistence on running on that ankle.”

“My ankle is _fine_ ,” Jane says, sharper than she means to.

“Well, my shoulder is _fine_.”

“Fine,” Jane mutters.

\------

“You know, I cried in that Jiffy Lube once,” Sabina offers, breaking the standoff between them on their walk back. They’re not _fighting_ , really, but after taking out their individual frustrations on one another up in the park, they’d finished their workout in stony silence.

“Really,” Jane drawls, and sees Sabina’s lightning-quick grin flash at her, and all of a sudden they’re okay again.

“Girl named Carmen. Broke my heart,” Sabina says. Jane feels something twist in her gut.

“I’m sure she wasn’t worth it,” she says eventually, pleased at how even her voice comes out.

“Yeah, well, she also dismantled my car for parts and sold it to her cousins in Tijuana, so,” Sabina shrugs. “I liked the car more than her anyway. It was a _Mustang_.”

“Huh,” Jane says, because what else is there to say to that.

\------

“Alors, tu parles français," Sabina says that evening, on the patio over glasses of rosé. It isn’t a question. Her accent is fucking perfect: pointed and Parisian, but not noticeable enough to make her stand out on a job. Passable anywhere, but clearly fluent. At Jane’s look, Sabina adds, “I heard you speaking it, earlier. In Hamburg.”

“Oh,” Jane says, unsure where this is going but unwilling to dwell on “in Hamburg” and the fact that it had been Edgar she’d been speaking to. “Ouais. Et toi aussi, apparement—je ne le savais pas.”

“Ma nounou était parisienne,” Sabina says.

“Ah,” Jane says. A Parisian nanny: Park Avenue heiress indeed. “So, what else?” This is a familiar game she’s played with other Angels—what can you do, what can I do, who can do what better. It isn’t a game she’s played yet with Sabina, strangely enough.

“Russian,” Sabina says, after a pause. “My best friend growing up was Russian. Daughter of some oil baron. I spent a lot of time with their family.” She cuts her gaze away from Jane and stares into her glass of wine instead. “Portuguese and Spanish too, but badly, just enough to get myself into trouble. I never had the talent for languages as an adult… trying to learn anything in those Agency immersion courses was just.” She waves her hands. “An exercise in frustration.”

There’s clearly more to the story about the Russian daughter of the oil baron, but Jane knows when to leave well enough alone.

“That’s why they recruited me,” she volunteers instead. “MI-6, I mean. They only discovered I could do combat after, like, eight months of training for the Mediterranean intelligence desk.”

“Damn,” Sabina says, sounding impressed. “So you’re, like, some language savant or something?”

“Hardly,” Jane says, although Sabina’s assessment is actually pretty close. “But I’ve always loved languages. I just sort of absorb them, I guess, given the opportunity.” 

“Well, so, what can you do?” Sabina insists. “You’ve intrigued me, now impress me.” Jane flushes, both because she knows the answer will come out sounding like a brag, and from Sabina’s tone of voice.

“Well, my mum’s Polish, so Polish obviously. German. The major strategic Romance languages: Spanish, French, Portuguese, Catalan.” She clears her throat. “Also Greek, Arabic, and Turkish, to varying degrees. My Farsi is rusty but passable.” She eyes Sabina, who had finally raised one eyebrow at the Farsi comment. “Mind you, I can’t read Arabic, just speak it. And it’s Egyptian Arabic at that.”

“Sure, that makes me feel better,” Sabina mutters at her wine glass. “You think I can read Russian?”

“I don’t know, can you?”

“No,” Sabina says, rolling her eyes. “No, but I know a lot of good insults.”

“Probably equally as useful,” Jane says. She pauses. “How… good is your Russian?” It’s a delicate question, because she knows what types of jobs the beautiful, white, Russian-speaking Angels tend to get sent on.

“Good enough,” Sabina says, with a warning in her eyes. 

So they’re not going there tonight. They fall silent; Jane figures that’s enough sharing for one night.

Instead she looks at Sabina, lets herself look in a way she doesn’t usually indulge in. The light from the kitchen is glowing along her cheekbones and her jawline, across the jut of her collarbone that’s peeking out from the neckline of her sweatshirt. Sabina is wearing, as far as Jane can tell, nothing aside from an oversized men’s sweatshirt over a tank top and underwear, no pants and no shoes. After five days of sleeping in her guest room, Jane has learned this ensemble is Sabina’s preferred attire when at home: relaxed, cocooned, legs out.

It shouldn’t work. Sabina’s whole… whole _thing_ shouldn’t work: the bulky sweatshirts and ribbed tanks and crop tops she lazes about it; the utter lack of attention or fucks given to her hair; the ungainly heft of her chunky jewelry and the harshness of the tattoos and the scars that dot her arms. None of it should work, and yet, Jane is finding, it really, really fucking works.

“You ever sleep with a mark?” Sabina asks abruptly, breaking Jane’s reverie.

“What? Of course not,” Jane says automatically, horrified. “You… you know the rules.” She trails off, suddenly unsure, suddenly terrified about why Sabina is asking this question.

“Sure I do,” Sabina says with a dry laugh. “Everyone knows the rules.”

Jane waits a beat, hoping Sabina won’t make her ask. But she does. “Have… you?”

“No,” Sabina says softly. “Not as an Angel.”

\------

“So shore leave,” Sabina repeats the next morning when she finds Jane reading in the living room. Her eyes are bleary and still soft in a way that Jane finds, horrifyingly, to be adorable. “Day one.”

“Shore leave,” Jane agrees. It’s almost eleven and she’s been up for hours by now, has been out for a walk and down to the grocery store to pick up more milk, has already cycled through her pattern drills for the day. She’s feeling restless and uncomfortable in her skin with nothing to do, nothing to plan ahead for.

“I…” Sabina sounds uncertain, which is a rare enough occurrence that Jane looks up from her book. “Look, there’s a villa in Martinique I know, and an Agency plane is headed out there tonight.” She coughs and looks at her feet, which are, as usual, bare. “I figured… francophone, Caribbean, a beach, far enough away but not too long a flight.” She pauses. “You… you coming?”

Jane is.

\------

The first few days in Martinique they spend “just relaxing,” at Sabina’s insistence. It’s the type of thing Jane usually hates, “relaxing,” but she finds that when it’s with Sabina, she doesn’t mind it nearly as much. They rotate from lazing in the sun to swimming in the sea and back again, usually moving to the hot tub in the evening but keeping no real schedule, eating fruit and fish and drinking champagne and Aperol spritzes when they’re hungry or thirsty. They fall asleep at night on the couch watching Top Chef and Drag Race with the windows flung wide open, listening to the sounds of the surf break over and over in an incessant, repetitive tattoo that’s predictable and calming. Jane gets eaten by mosquitoes one evening when they spend too long on the porch at dusk, and Sabina gets wretchedly sunburned the following afternoon when they fall asleep on the beach in the sun, but Jane finds that by day four, she wakes with a smile on her face and a lightness in her chest that she hasn’t felt for months. 

She also finds that she’s adapting to Sabina’s preferred sleeping pattern, which is late nights and even later mornings. “My work here is done,” Sabina says on the morning of day five, gesturing to a cup of coffee and a plate of toast that’s waiting for Jane on the breakfast table when she pads into the kitchen.

“What?” Jane mutters, seeking solace in the caffeine. Sabina flicks her eyes to where the clock accusingly proclaims it to be 10:37am, which cannot be correct. She has one leg tucked up underneath herself and the other stretched out onto the opposite chair at the breakfast table, which she doesn’t move when Jane approaches. After a moment Jane picks the foot up and moves it so that she can sit down, and unthinkingly puts it back in her lap once she’s seated. Sabina raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment.

“You’re a bad influence,” Jane mutters, belatedly realizing that putting Sabina’s foot back in her lap may _not_ have been the brightest idea she’s ever had.

“Am I,” Sabina murmurs, voice lower than Jane’s heard it before. Sabina digs her heel into Jane’s thigh for a brief moment, and Jane catches her breath.

But then. “Come on,” Sabina says, and moves her foot and stands up. “Finish your breakfast.” There’s a gleam in her eye, and Jane takes a larger gulp of coffee.

“What?”

“Let’s spar,” Sabina says, and Jane feels a thrill in her bones.

\------

The thing about Sabina in a fight is that she’s only predictable in the sense that she’s unpredictable.

She’s a controlled fighter; Jane knew that even before they laid down the exercise mats and started circling one another. First of all, they don’t give you your wings if you can’t control yourself under pressure. But Jane’s also seen Sabina in a real, honest-to-god fight, has worked with her on a team, and it’s more than enough to know that she should expect the unexpected.

Sabina’s controlled, but she doesn’t fight like a pro, even though Jane knows, in theory, that she is one. She’s scrappy and cunning and keeps pulling out moves Jane has never seen before, moves that shouldn’t work but somehow do. She flips between brash offense and slippery defense so many times Jane loses track of her own moves, whether she’s being proactive or reactive. It’s unsettling.

“You’re good,” Jane admits after several minutes, breathing hard, cheekbone smarting from Sabina’s (pulled) punch.

“So’re you,” Sabina says, chewing on her lip (bad habit in a fight; if Jane smacked her in the face right now she’s bite straight through her flesh). “But we knew that.” Sabina dodges Jane’s punch and tries to leverage the momentum to pull her over and down, but Jane slides away and settles back into her rest position, balanced on the balls of her feet with hands up.

“I confess I’m not entirely surprised. Wanna go for ten more minutes?” she asks with a grin.

“You bet, cutie,” Sabina says, which distracts Jane long enough for Sabina to whack her solidly in the ribs.

\------

“Ahhhh,” Sabina says as she slides into the hot tub later that evening, where Jane’s been soaking her muscles for ten minutes already. Jane keeps her eyes closed, only opening them when she hears the slip of Sabina fully submerging herself under the water.

“Did you ice that cheek?” Sabina asks, resurfacing closer than Jane had imagined, black bikini top distractingly visible above the water. “I didn’t mean to get you in the face,” she says, leaning in closer to peer at Jane’s swollen cheekbone, sounding apologetic with hands hovering but not touching.

“It’s fine, and yes I iced it,” Jane says, impatient. She simultaneously wants to move far away from Sabina and to move in closer, to have Sabina put her hands all over her. 

“Okay,” Sabina says with a shrug, and falls back.

Dammit.

They soak in silence for a few minutes. Jane tries to feel the silence and relaxation wash back over her, but now she feels too keyed up to properly enjoy it.

“Edgar taught me to recognize patterns in how people fight,” Jane says eventually, tilting her head back to look up at the stars. “Most people have, like, six to eight main moves they fall back on, especially when they’re stressed. You have a couple I recognized, but you’re more unpatterned than anyone I’ve ever fought, even other Angels. Unpredictable.”

Jane hears sloshing as Sabina runs a chlorined hand through her hair. “Thanks. I think,” Sabina says eventually.

“It’s a compliment. Been awhile since I sparred with someone I couldn’t predict three moves out. Someone who could actually beat me.”

“Jesus,” Sabina mutters, and clears her throat. “Well, if we’re being honest, you’re fucking terrifying. Earlier today, and every time I’ve seen you fight before. You’re so controlled and precise and… god, I don’t know. You’re just _elegant._ Measured, like you don’t waste any energy—everything you do has a reason, nothing is for show. Just straight up confidence and competence and… edited. It was sexy as hell.” Sabina coughs. “I’m glad you weren’t actually trying to kill me.”

“Same,” Jane says, and for a moment, she wants to reach out and trace her toe along the edge of Sabina’s calf, underwater but only about three inches away. _Sexy as hell_ indeed.

She doesn’t. 

“Did Edgar teach you to fight?” Sabina asks after a moment. “Like that, I mean. Obviously you were already some kind of ninja when you came to the Agency, I just meant, like, the whole pattern thing, and the precision. You know what I mean. Actually, you know what, I’m going to stop talking, so just. Never mind. I didn’t mean to… pry.”

Jane breathes out, tries not to visualize Edgar’s blood curling up and swirling around his face in the depths of the Elbe. She sees it enough when she closes her eyes at night; she doesn’t need to see it here now, too.

“Edgar taught me to fight like an Angel,” Jane says, once she’s sure her voice will come out even. “How to fight strategically. MI-6 just, like, taught me hand-to-hand and how to break down a gun with my eyes closed, not how to be smart about those skills.” She bites her lip. “With them it was pretty much sink or swim. If you got it, if you figured out how to use what they gave you, you completed your objectives and stayed alive. If you didn’t… well.”

“Brutal,” Sabina says. “Obviously you weren’t one of the ones who sunk.”

“No,” Jane allows. “I figured it out pretty quick. I figured out too much too quickly, actually, if you ask my former CO. Too smart for my own good, I think were his words.” Jane sighs. “Too independent. I tried to do my own strategizing rather than leaving it to the higher-ups. But Edgar always said that… that it was something that can’t be taught. You know? That I should use it because it was a gift.”

Fuck; she’s crying. Silently, thank god, but there are tears. She doesn't know if Sabina notices, but Sabina has eyes that work and is also trained to be extremely observant, so. She probably notices.

Underneath the water she feels Sabina grab her hand and squeeze it. She definitely knows.

“I miss him so much,” Jane says thickly, staring up at the sky so she doesn’t have to look at Sabina. “He… anchored me, grounded me. He loved me, I think, in his own weird way. You know? I have a dad and I have brothers, but Edgar was something… like all the best parts of both.” Jane breathes out, shaking. “He always knew what to do. He was always safe.”

Sabina doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t let go of Jane’s hand either. 

“He and Alain, his ex-husband, divorced three years ago,” Jane says eventually, once she trusts herself enough to speak. “Alain was a jerk—Edgar only ever had one blind spot I ever saw, and it was Alain. Anyway, like a year after the divorce, we were walking in Parc Monceau. A day off, in between jobs. And we saw Alain in the park. And Edgar—he got this idea in his head. He made me tail Alain for _an hour and a half_ so that he could sneak up to Alain’s flat and get some book he had left that Alain had never returned. A _book_. I think he had to break in, honestly, because Alain changed the locks.” Jane smiles at the memory. “So I followed this asshole around for, like, two miles of mindless meandering around the Seventeenth doing his fucking _shopping_ to make sure he wasn’t going back to the flat before Edgar got out, and it was the most boring thing I’d ever done and I was so mad at Edgar, I thought it was this huge waste of my free afternoon.” Jane bites her lip. “And then… Edgar gave the book to me for my birthday, four months later. He had stolen it back because he wanted to give it to me.”

“What book was it?” Sabina asks, after several beats of silence.

“A poem. _Le bateau ivre_ ,” Jane murmurs. “Rimbaud. Did you ever read it?”

Sabina snorts. “I think you under-estimate how much I absolutely did not pay attention in school.” 

Jane says nothing; she breathes, and Sabina breathes, and doesn’t let go of her hand. The stillness settles around them, cat-quiet and calming, warm and soft but watchful. Jane feels her grief expand up and out, feels it floating up into the sky above her, but she also feels… eased, in a way, with Sabina there to witness it with her.

“I miss him,” Jane repeats eventually, at a whisper.

“I know, honey,” Sabina whispers back, and squeezes her hand again. “Do you… want a hug?”

Jane shakes her head. “No. Thank you, but no, enough of this.” She lets go of Sabina’s hand to fish around for a towel to wipe her face, suddenly desperate to change the conversation. “You talk now. Where’d you learn that elbow move? You got me twice with it.” She demonstrates, throwing her elbow up and her shoulder back, sloshing water over the edge of the hot tub. 

Sabina laughs shortly. “Prison,” she says, flat but teasing like it’s a joke. But then Jane looks at her and realizes it’s not. And so Sabina, reluctantly at first but with more panache as the tale progresses, tells her the story of Lena and the prison guards.

\------

On day six of shore leave, Sabina decides they need to go out.

“Come on,” she wheedles Jane. “There’s a little club I know just down in town, mostly locals, no assholes. We’ll be the hottest ones there but when are we not?”

Jane knows it’s a terrible idea, for at least seven reasons, but she agrees anyway. In the bathroom mirror before they leave, Jane watches Sabina: three hair tousles and two smudges of eyeliner, and she seems ready to go. She’s in a short black romper that looks like a dress and flat combat boots, a combination Jane knows by now she favors as much for its ease of moment and weapons storage potential as for the leg it shows. At Jane’s eyebrow, Sabina tugs a knife out of her boot, twirls it, and sheathes it back with a sideways smile.

“You look good, babe,” Sabina offers, giving her a blatant once-over. Jane knows she does: you can never go wrong with leather pants and a white tank. “You carrying?”

“Stupid question,” Jane smirks, tilting her ankle so Sabina can see the matching ankle sheath and knife tucked away in her own boot. 

“Nice. You ready?”

Jane regards her reflection consideringly. “Almost.” She leans up close to the mirror and pushes red lipstick against her lips, drags the color down along the bottom curve first, then tracing up along the cupid’s bow of her top. Maybe she’s crazy, maybe she’s reading too much into everything, but she feels Sabina’s eyes trace the movement of the lipstick.

“There,” she says, sliding the lipstick bullet into her other boot. “Let’s go.”

\------

The club is actually pretty fun, full but not obscenely crowded; Sabina and Jane slide into French easily, still clearly foreign (most of the locals are speaking creole, not French) but not too outsider-y to draw too much unwarranted attention. Sabina immediately orders them drinks and they lean up against the bar to watch the dance floor.

“See anyone you like?” Sabina murmurs, lips and breath ghosting across Jane’s ear. Jane shivers in surprise.

“What? Um, no,” she says, too loud even though she has to almost yell to be heard over the music. “I’m not… not looking tonight,” she continues. Is that why Sabina wanted to go out?

“I’m just saying, you could,” Sabina says, sipping her drink like she doesn’t have a care in the world. “If you wanted to bring someone back tonight, I mean. I don’t mind, I don’t wanna cramp your style.”

“Why? Are you?” Jane challenges. “Is that why we’re… why you’re here?”

“Nah,” Sabina says easily. “I just like… well, ordinarily I would say I like the feeling of being alone surrounded by people.” She pauses. “But I guess I’m not alone, am I?”

“You’ll be alone for the next twenty minutes or so, at least,” Jane says, downing her drink in one swallow that fucking burns, but she needs to escape this situation before she does something completely boneheaded. “I’m gonna go dance,” she says, and steps away without making it an invitation for Sabina to follow her.

It’s nice for a few songs, Jane reckons, which is more time than she usually gets before someone starts to get the wrong idea. The truth is that Jane _loves_ dancing, loves the sweat and smell of a club, loves the wham of a bass when she can feel it rattle through her chest and her bones. And the music here is great; she can lose herself in the moment, that long, stretched-out space in time where her body moves as if of its own volition as she waits for the beat to drop, for the song to resolve, for the next song to begin.

But it can only last for so long, as she knows. Inevitably she feels it: some guy’s sweaty palm slides over her hip, and then she feels another one across her shoulder. She swats them away and steps aside to avoid the touch, raising her hands to indicate she’s not interested. It works for maybe half a song, until she feels some jerk’s dick drag along her thigh, and another hand tangle in her hair. She whirls on them, irritated now, ready to fight.

“Hey baby,” one of the jerks says. He’s speaking creole but the meaning of the words is more than clear enough to Jane.

“Sorry, guys, I’m not interested,” she says, mitigating her accent as much as she can, trying to sound less European so maybe they’ll just fucking leave her alone. She doesn’t really want to make a scene here.

“Oh? The pretty continental princess is too good for us?” the other dude says, leering, reaching out a hand to touch her hair again. Jane smacks it away with more force than is probably necessary; the guy’s eyes widen, and his smarmy smile turns into a sneer of disgust.

“You think you can touch me, you fucking bitch?” he hisses, drawing himself up to his full height, which is still two inches shorter than her. Jane smirks and settles back into her fight stance, balances her weight just so and shakes out her wrists. She’s ready.

And then.

“Coucou,” says a too-sweet voice, and it’s Sabina, sliding up next to Jane, wrapping a hand around her waist and pressing a warning against her hip bone. _G-U-N_ , Sabina’s hand taps the letters out, even as she twitters, “Anne-Marie, t’as rencontré des amis ?”

Gun. One of these fuckers has a gun. Jane sees it now, where she didn’t see it before: extra bulky weight in the right jacket pocket of the first asshole. She grips Sabina’s hand and taps back an acknowledgement.

“Bonsoir… Brigitte, enchantée,” Sabina is introducing herself, stepping forward and giving fucking bises to these two guys, cheek to cheek, but keeping a hand on Jane the whole time. “I’m so sorry about my friend here, her boyfriend was supposed to meet us here but he’s always late, so she’s in a bit of a _mood_.” Sabina giggles; Jane had forgotten that this particular style of vapidity is one Sabina excels at, although now she remembers it from Rio. “You know how girls can be,” Sabina continues, with a little moue of self-deprecation. The men are relaxing, muttering to one another about the apparent boyfriend. “Anne-Marie, chérie, do you want to get some air outside while we wait for Michel?”

“Sure,” Jane says, as Sabina tugs her away. “Have a nice night, guys.” They don’t follow.

“ _Ugh_ ,” Sabina says with feeling, once they’re outside. She doesn’t drop Jane’s hand immediately, and squeezes it instead. “Sorry. I told you there were no assholes there, but I guess there are assholes everywhere.”

“There are assholes everywhere,” Jane agrees. “Thanks for… keeping me from causing a scene. Brigitte.”

“Hey, less paperwork for me to fill out afterwards,” Sabina says easily. “Plus…” she pulls her other hand out of her jacket pocket, displaying two wallets and a pack of cigarettes as she waggles her eyebrows at Jane. “Look what I got. Bounty.”

“Thief,” Jane murmurs with a laugh, but eyes the cigarettes. She doesn’t smoke, not anymore, but when presented with two temptations in one night (the other one, of course, being Sabina), the cigarettes are far and away the safer choice. She only has so much willpower.

Sabina sees her eyes and glances at the pack. “Yeah?” she asks, raising an eyebrow. “Jane Kano, well I never. A bad habit? _Against the rules_? You?”

“Save it,” Jane says, trying not to smile but failing miserably. “Beach?”

Sabina buys a lighter and a bottle of shitty wine from across the street with the money from the jerks’ wallets, and they make their way down to the sand.

“I’m gonna regret this tomorrow,” Jane says around the cigarette, as Sabina lights it for her.

“Same,” Sabina says, taking a long drag and tilting her head up to the stars before blowing the smoke out with a quiet groan. “But _fuck_ I miss nicotine sometimes.”

“Yeah.” Jane’s first inhale is already hitting her, that brief ephemeral effervescence of a non-smoker’s high, like her lungs simultaneously can’t breathe enough and can breathe all too much. Like her body itself is simultaneously too much and not enough, too present and not present enough. She knows it’s fucked up but she drinks in the sight of Sabina, like this: elbows propped and knees drawn up, the glowing smoking ember held delicately between two fingers at an angle with wrists turned out, nonchalant and fucking deadly.

“Didn’t know you smoked,” Sabina ventures, after a moment.

“I don’t, really,” Jane says. “Quit ages ago, once I started Angel training. But you don’t get good at languages if you don’t go smoke in bars with the locals.” Jane takes another drag and, to her endless horror, fucking _coughs_ , the burnt acrid taste of the cigarette coating her lungs. It really has been awhile. Sabina, bless her, ignores it. “You? Wait, let me guess: prison.”

It’s the wrong thing to say, and Jane knows as soon as the words leave her mouth. 

Sabina smokes quietly for several beats, enough for multiple waves to crash in and remind Jane of her idiocy over and over. “No, actually,” she says eventually, words tight in her mouth, smoke held low in her lungs. “No, believe it or not I started smoking way before I destroyed my life.”

Jane wants to fucking bury her head in the sand, or run into the ocean, or _something_.

“Fuck, babe, I’m sorry,” she says. “That was a dick thing to say, I wasn’t thinking.” She leans over to grab the wine but overshoots it, winds up with her head knocking against Sabina’s shoulder. “Fuck,” she says again. “Can I have the wine?”

“Not sure you need it,” Sabina mutters, but she sounds affectionate and hands over the bottle nevertheless.

Jane takes a gulp of it and Sabina is right, it’s truly terrible. She leans her head against Sabina’s shoulder, for real this time, and they watch the waves in silence for long minutes.

“Did you just call me ‘babe’?” Sabina asks eventually.

“God, I did, I thought I’d try it out but it failed,” Jane says, mentally writhing in agony but relieved to hear the tease back in Sabina's voice. “I can’t do pet names like you can, it just doesn’t work.”

“Just takes practice,” Sabina says, leaning her head down against Jane’s. “Babe.”

They watch the tide come in until it starts to go out again, until it’s late enough that it’s almost early, until they eventually make their way back with nicotine tar in their throats and sand in their shoes.

\------

The rest of shore leave is largely the same: tanning, swimming, sparring, and late-night conversations. 

“Okay okay,” Sabina says, on their third-to-last night in Martinique. They’re back in the hot tub with a bottle of rose and too many endorphins from their sparring session earlier. “Don’t think about it, just answer. First celebrity crush!”

“Um, um,” Jane thinks, trying to come up with the least red-flaggy answer ever. “Um, Josh Hartnett?”

Sabina gives her a look that says maybe she failed, but lets it slide. 

“Come on, you!” Jane says, giggling.

“Eva Green,” Sabina says promptly. “I saw _The Dreamers_ way too young, in theaters, it was inevitable. Your turn.”

“Favorite dessert.”

“Oh god, so many,” Sabina says seriously, drinking directly out of the bottle. “Um, um… okay! Baklava. You?”

“Profiteroles,” Jane says immediately.

“Favorite city,” Sabina offers next.

“Paris,” Jane says automatically, but feels the bottom drop out of her stomach.

“LA, believe it or not,” Sabina says, but must see something on Jane’s face, because her laughter falls away, and they’re left with a ringing silence between them.

“Hey, you okay?” Sabina asks eventually, tentative.

Jane only shakes her head, because she realizes, now, that her throat is too constricted to make words.

Paris. 

Paris is Edgar.

Edgar is dead.

Edgar is dead and Jane sees him, upside down in the car underwater, and his blood is curling around his head like a perverted halo, and it’s curling out and out and out. More blood, and it’s reaching for her too as she bangs and rails against the car door that she can’t open, Edgar’s blood swirling against her body now, around her arm and her shoulder, tangling in her hair.

She must be crying, because she can feel her body seizing and heaving and retching, and at some point she registers that Sabina is making soothing and worried noises and is wiping her face with a towel, but Jane can’t be crying, because she’s cried _so much already_.

But now Sabina is tugging her out of the hot tub, wrapping her in the towel and leading her inside. Jane maybe throws up on the way. Sabina is pouring her a glass of water, but Jane still can’t… talk, can’t see what’s going on, can’t really breathe very well.

Jane tries to drink the water but retches as she tries to swallow.

“Jane,” Sabina’s voice, somehow shockingly calm, somehow penetrates the fog in her brain. “Jane, I don't know what to do. If you can’t drink this or talk to me, I’m gonna call Saint.” She hears Sabina inhale, shakily. “Jane, I…”

With herculean effort Jane takes a breath and swallows a gulp of water. “I’m okay,” she says, ever so softly, in barely a whisper.

“Hey, okay, good,” Sabina murmurs, and moves to touch Jane but pulls back at the last minute. “Can I, do you want—”

“Yeah,” Jane says, feeling very small, and Sabina folds her into a hug.

Jane feels herself cry more, after that, unmoored and desperately floating in a sea of swirling loss, but it feels less wretched and mystifying and alone with Sabina’s arms around her.

Eventually, though, reality returns. “My skin itches,” Jane says, thickly, after a few beats without any additional sobs.

“That’ll be the chlorine,” Sabina says, pulling back to look at Jane. She lightly swipes a thumb across Jane’s cheekbone, and Jane leans into the touch. “And the tears. Oh, sweetheart. You should rinse off and drink at least two more glasses of water, honestly.”

Jane just stares at her. It sounds like so much… work.

“Okay, come on,” Sabina says, clearly interpreting what she sees on Jane’s face. “Do you think you can shower? You’ll thank me tomorrow. Come on, I'll help you.”

She bullies Jane into the bathroom and into brushing her teeth, and runs the shower water until it’s steamy and warm and fragrant. And then she just… pushes Jane into the shower and steps in after her, both of them still in their bathing suits.

“What are you doing,” Jane murmurs, too tired to even make it a question.

“We are rinsing off before bed, so that you don’t feel like a raisin tomorrow,” Sabina says, no-nonsense. “Hands.” She squirts some body wash into Jane’s palm. “Just get the chlorine off and then you can go to bed.” She gives Jane a look. “Hey. I _will_ do this for you if I have to, okay?”

“Okay,” Jane says, silently thinking that she wouldn’t actually object to that turn of events, but dutifully soaping the suds around her body and rinsing her hair under the spray anyway.

Sabina steps out of the shower first; Jane hears the wet slap of her bathing suit on the tile and then Sabina reappears, wrapped in a fluffy robe. “Here’s your robe,” she says, hanging it just outside the shower door. “I’ll see you out there.”

When Jane steps into the kitchen a few minutes later, Sabina has two mugs of tea.

“You look better,” she says, offering one to Jane. “Do you wanna go lie down?”

“I think so,” Jane says. Later, much later, she’ll blame emotional exhaustion for what she says next. “Will you… come with me?”

Sabina does.

\------

Jane wakes to the sound of birds chirping and the feeling of a warm weight heavy on her chest, soft skin against skin and someone’s bedhead tickling her nose. She can’t remember the last time she’s been this comfortable, weighted down and sinking deep into the mattress, cool sheets cocooning around her and shielding her from the bright morning light. Jane feels… warm and soft and contained, safe and entangled. At peace. 

She knows it’s Sabina who’s draped herself across Jane’s body, of course, knows that it’s Sabina’s hair she feels under her chin, Sabina’s head resting on her chest, Sabina’s leg slung over Jane’s hip like Jane is nothing more than a giant body pillow.

She knows, but she lets herself not deal with the consequences for just a few minutes longer, and dozes off, drifts back into comfortable oblivion.

When she opens her eyes again, Sabina is already awake and looking at her. 

“Good morning,” Sabina says, soft into the tiny space between them. 

Jane has seen many sides of Sabina, by now: bleary and muzzy in the mornings pre-coffee, brisk and businesslike on assignment, flirty and vapid with men wrapped around her finger, grinning and relaxed over beers and tacos in a wifebeater and leather jacket. But Jane has never seen this side before, where Sabina is soft and still and delicate, almost bird-like, face open and walls down. She’s biting the side of her lower lip, just slightly, and her eyes are roving over Jane’s face.

“Good morning,” Jane whispers back, because she doesn’t know what else to do. Sabina is still here, in bed, still has her leg slung over one of Jane’s, which must mean something. “You stayed.”

“Course I did. You asked,” Sabina murmurs, a small smile stealing over her face almost as if she can’t help it. “How are you feeling?”

“Mmmm, ask me again once I’ve had coffee,” Jane says, deflecting, because the truth is _embarrassed about last night_ and also _really fucking turned on_. She reaches up a hand—bold, so bold!—and cups Sabina’s cheek. “Thank you for staying.”

Sabina presses her face into Jane’s palm. “You’re welcome,” she murmurs.

Jane knows she should move, should roll over, sit up. She should remove herself from this situation before she does something she truly regrets, before she ruins a friendship and a partnership she’s only just now allowing herself to believe she can have. Because Jane also knows now, finally, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what it is that she’s feeling: it’s wild, unbridled attraction that’s racing through her, giddiness at waking up with Sabina in her arms, arousal at the familiar sight of the ratty white tank top Sabina sleeps in and the disaster of her bedhead. 

Fuck.

She doesn’t move. Instead of doing any of the things she knows she should, she swipes a thumb along the line of Sabina’s cheek and allows herself the briefest indulgence of looking at Sabina’s mouth. Sabina notices, because of course she does: Jane sees her eyes widen, ever so slightly.

Jane doesn’t know how long they lie like that, eyes locked, with the golden thread of possibility hanging between them like spider silk. Jane sees it, gleaming in the morning light along with the dust motes, stretched delicately between the two of them. They’re close enough to share breath, and everywhere her skin is touching Sabina’s, Jane feels it like a burn. 

Jane is frozen, unable to act, but unable to pull away.

It’s Sabina’s stomach that saves them, eventually. It growls, loud and insistent enough that neither of them can ignore it. The moment breaks, the glimmering thread disappears; Sabina laughs and finally drops her gaze, shaking her head a little and looking slightly dazed.

“I suppose we should get up and feed you,” Jane says.

“Probably,” Sabina agrees, sitting up, and Jane lets her arms fall away. “Breakfast would be good. And coffee.” Sabina yawns and drags her hands through her hair. Her tank top rides up a little, and the muscles on her biceps and traps pop out. It’s the fucking sexiest thing Jane has ever seen, which is honestly at this point a little unreasonable. Sabina glances at her out of her corner of her eye, and raises an eyebrow when she sees Jane looking.

Jane really, really needs to do something about this.

\------

Not immediately, though. Sabina continues on with her day as if nothing has changed, and Jane supposes nothing _has_ changed, not for Sabina at least. They don’t talk about Jane’s meltdown over Paris, or the morning after. And so the last days of their shore leave slide by in a haze of sun, sand, coffee, and champagne, until it’s the morning of the day before their flights out and she and Sabina are sparring, as usual, after breakfast.

“Looks like your shoulder’s fully healed,” Jane says from across the mat, bouncing on the balls of her feet, waiting for Sabina’s next move. They know each other’s fight styles better, by now, and Jane can tell that finally, after two weeks of rest and light exercise, Sabina’s finally no longer favoring her shoulder.

“Yep. Feels great,” Sabina says, cracking her neck and shifting her weight, eyeing Jane like she’s trying to decipher her next move. “Just in time.”

“In time for what?” Jane feints to her left, but Sabina doesn’t fall for it.

“I’m back on active duty tomorrow,” Sabina reminds her, coming in with a flurry of punches, all of which Jane blocks easily. Neither of them is really trying to beat the other, at this point.

“You get a job already?”

“Bos is meeting me at the airstrip in LA,” Sabina admits. “Got a ping from her this morning. No details yet, but it’s supposed to be a quickie, in and out, easy.”

Something churns in Jane’s stomach—a few somethings, actually. Jealousy for one, but also nervousness, apprehension. For Sabina.

No job is easy or danger-free; it is, of course, what they all signed up for. Jane has been nervous for friends before, of course, has felt anxious when a colleague is sent out on a particularly dangerous job, but she’s never felt anything like this—the urge to envelop, to protect, to wrap Sabina up in her arms and shield her from all the terrible, hurtful people in the world, even though she knows perfectly well that Sabina can take care of herself.

“Jane? Hello?” Sabina’s waving her hand in front of her face, and Jane realizes she’s dropped her stance and is staring off into the middle distance like an absolute _loon_.

“Sorry,” she says, flushing, coming back to herself at once. God, what is _happening_ to her?!

“It's fine,” Sabina says, but she’s eyeing Jane strangely. “Uh, I feel like we’re about done anyway. Think I’m gonna go rinse off.”

“Yeah,” Jane says, faintly.

“You good?” Sabina asks her, sounding confused and slightly concerned.

“I’m good,” Jane insists, shaking herself. “Sorry. Go shower, I’m gonna stretch for a minute.”

“...Okay,” Sabina says, giving Jane one last, considering look before she disappears down the hall.

\------

“So where are you off to, after this?”

Sabina’s back is to Jane and she’s chopping vegetables at the kitchen counter; the question sounds nonchalant, and the rhythm of the knife doesn’t falter, but Jane thinks she maybe sees a line of tension running down Sabina’s back. Jane feels it, too: it’s not that she doesn’t want to get back to work—she wants nothing more, in fact, than to get sent out on another assignment—but she also doesn’t want this honeymoon phase of their friendship to end. She doesn’t want Sabina to return to LA without her, doesn’t want to wake up six months from now in her lonely Paris apartment and realize she doesn’t know where Sabina is, what job she’s been sent on, how she’s doing.

It’s wild, how quickly and dramatically her feelings about Sabina Wilson have changed in three weeks. 

“Earth to Jane?”

“Sorry,” Jane says, giving herself a little shake. “Um, I’m just going back to Paris. My apartment has been empty for months at this point; I think I need to spend some time just, you know, settling in again. I’m technically still stationed out of there.” Jane grimaces. “Although with Brexit, I don’t know how much longer that'll fly with my UK passport—you know how the Agency is about visas.”

“God, do I ever,” Sabina says, and Jane can just _hear_ the eyeroll in her voice. “Didn’t you say your mom’s Polish, though? Don’t you have EU citizenship?”

“Mum’s American, actually, but only technically,” Jane says, pouring herself a glass of white from the fridge and topping off Sabina’s while she’s at it. “She was born on a military base in San Diego. I’m dual US-UK.”

“Well then, if they kick you out of France you can always come crash in LA with me,” Sabina says. She still sounds casual, but something warm and bubbly glows in Jane’s chest anyway, just to hear Sabina make the offer.

“Thanks,” Jane says, leaning her hip against the countertop next to where Sabina’s chopping. “Not sure I’m really an LA person, though,” she says, watching the flash of the knife in Sabina’s hands.

“You’d do fine,” Sabina says, flicking her eyes up and down Jane’s body easily. It’s nothing more than a glance, but Jane feels it like a touch. “Everyone’ll just think you’re a model.”

“I—thanks,” Jane says, stammering. “For the offer, I mean. It’d…” she clears her throat. “It’d be nice to be on the same continent, at least.”

“I know,” Sabina says, setting the knife down and scraping all the vegetables on the cutting board into a pan on the stove, where they hiss and spit in the oil that’s been warming. Jane had been shocked to realize, three days into shore leave, that Sabina is actually an amazing cook. She has no idea what the plan for dinner is, but she’s sure it will be delicious. 

Sabina gives the vegetables a stir, tosses in some salt, and then turns back to face Jane, picking up her wine glass. “I’ll miss you too,” she says, eventually. “This has been… nice. Shore leave, and working together. I mean, not the whole roof thing—” her eyes crinkle at their shared joke “—and I guess I could have done without the whole getting-blown-up-in-Istanbul part, although it _did_ lead to you crying at my bedside.” Jane narrows her eyes. “But seriously,” Sabina continues, meeting Jane’s gaze. “It’s been… amazing, actually. I don’t… well, I don’t usually get along with other Angels like this. Or anyone, really.”

“This may shock you, but neither do I,” Jane says dryly. After a moment, she holds out her wine glass. “To new friends.”

Sabina clinks her glass against Jane’s and sips, holding her eye contact the whole time.

“Do you need to stir that?” Jane asks eventually, looking over Sabina’s shoulder at the cooking vegetables.

“Shit, yeah,” Sabina says, picking up the spoon again. “Hey, would you get the linguine out of the pantry for me?”

\------

Their flights leave insanely early the next morning, so if Jane clings a little too long to Sabina when they hug goodbye on the tarmac, she can blame sleep deprivation.

“Be safe out there,” Sabina says when they finally pull away. She’s cupping Jane’s face in her hands and her green eyes are serious. All business, no nonsense. “I mean it.”

“You too,” Jane says, and hears her voice come out breathier than she likes. “Will you… let me know you’re safe? When you can?” The specter of Sabina’s upcoming mission, about which Jane knows exactly nothing (which is protocol, of course, but which she _hates_ ) hangs over them, unspoken about but not unacknowledged.

Sabina’s smile is easy and unworried, hair whipping into her face with the breeze. “Of course, babygirl.” She pauses. “You know you’re always welcome in LA, right.” It isn’t a question.

“Only if you come to Paris first,” Jane retorts.

“Deal,” Sabina says. “Assuming your British ass doesn’t get thrown out of the country before I can visit.” 

Jane rolls her eyes. “I’ll try to manage.”

Sabina holds her gaze for a few beats longer, long enough for them to hear the jet engines increase their speed. The universal signal: time to go.

Eventually, Sabina gives Jane a short, jerky nod, pats her cheek gently, and drops her hands. “Have a good flight.” And then she gets up on her toes to bise Jane twice, once on each cheek. Jane inhales, breathing in the woody, citrusy scent Sabina’s hair always has.

“Au revoir, Anne-Marie,” Sabina murmurs, cheek to cheek.

“Au revoir, Brigitte,” Jane murmurs back.


	2. Paris, Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahaha turns out I'm insane, here's the second part, which was so damn long I broke it into two installments.

All Angels have work and personal phones, as well as several burners of various origins, with them at any given time. But despite the vast array of telephone communications technology available to her, Jane finds herself unable to use any of them to contact Sabina in the aftermath of Martinique.

Work phones, obviously, are for work: Agency-issued, Agency-encrypted, Agency-monitored. She gets a message on her work phone from Bos that night, alerting her to Sabina’s safe arrival, and presumes that Bos relays Jane’s own confirmation of safe travels back to Sabina. Jane could contact Sabina directly, of course, but non-business personal conversations on Agency-issued devices are against protocol, and would almost certainly throw up a flag. She checks her phone multiple times that night regardless, but sees no incoming message from Sabina.

Personal phones, on the other hand, are essentially for keeping up the illusion of a normal, non-Angel life. Personal phones are for calling family members, for texting old school friends and dating prospects who don’t know what you do for a living, for ordering carryout and online shopping and reading the news. Personal phones are what the average person can procure by walking into an Apple store: unsecured, hackable, trackable, and deliberately not tied to the Agency in any way. Absolutely no Agency communication is allowed: nothing about work, nothing with anyone _at_ work, nothing at all that could lead a curious person back to the Agency or an Angel.

(Burner phones are, obviously, for specific jobs, as well as for maintaining contact with key sources around the world; Jane supposes she and Sabina could have bought burner phones together in Martinique before they left, but something about that feels too star-crossed-lovers for Jane’s taste.)

It’s pretty ironic that Sabina, who falls squarely in the middle of Jane’s “work” and “personal” Venn diagram, falls into “none of the above” when it comes to phones. Jane itches every day with the knowledge that out there somewhere in the world Sabina is doing something dangerous, deliberately putting herself in harm’s way, and Jane knows nothing about it. Intellectually, she knows that no news is good news; she knows that if something bad had happened to Sabina, she’d hear about it. She knows. But still: the radio silence stings, it feels stifling, it makes Jane feel insane.

Unsurprisingly, it’s Saint who eventually comes to her rescue. He’s stationed out of Paris for now and Jane meets with him every day for her mandated grief counseling, in which Saint lets her get away with mostly not talking about her grief, thank god.

“Okay,” he says on the third morning of Jane’s bereavement leave, after Jane has spent twenty minutes ranting about her upstairs neighbors and their propensity for dropping loud objects at three in the morning instead of talking about feelings. “Jane. My dear. This is getting ridiculous. Is this about Sabina?”

Jane tenses, but tries not to react.

“Is what about Sabina?”

“ _This_ ,” Saint says eloquently, gesturing at Jane. “This, _you_ , your whole—everything.” He leans back in his chair and regards her shrewdly. “Are you worried about her?”

“No. I mean, yes. I am. But I’m not, because I know that if something… bad happened, I’d hear.” Jane stares at Saint. “Right? I’d know? If something…”

“She’s fine,” Saint says, after a beat. “I talked to her this morning, actually.”

Jane feels herself sag in relief.

“She asked about you,” Saint continues. “And I’m gathering from your whole… demeanor… that you’ve been…” He tilts his head. “Worrying about her?”

“Maybe,” Jane mutters, staring down at her left knee. “It’s just weird, to go from spending 24/7 with someone to radio silence with no in-between.”

Saint nods slowly. Jane feels like she’s being observed, dissected by his eyes.

“Okay,” he says after a minute, nodding sharply. “Give me your phone.”

“Why?” Jane asks, but she’s already handing it over. It’s not like there’s anything on there Saint couldn’t peruse if he wanted to anyway. There’s no privacy on this phone, but at least the Agency has never pretended like there was _supposed_ to be privacy.

“I’m unlocking a messenger app on here,” Saint says, tapping away. Jane tries to peer at what he’s doing on the screen, but he angles it away. “Hey, this is my administrator login,” he chastises. “And I’m doing something nice for you.”

“I already have the messenger app on there,” Jane says.

“Not this one. This one is unlocked only for senior Angels, Saints, and Bosleys,” Saint says. “It’s not actively monitored by the Agency. I mean, they can look at it if they want to, but they don’t unless they have a reason.” He regards her evenly. “So, what I am saying is, it is not complete privacy, but it’s enough, generally speaking. To keep in touch, to maintain relationships.”

“Am I a senior Angel?” Jane asks, because the temptation of letting her brain run to the conclusion of what she _thinks_ Saint is telling her is too overwhelming.

“After Hamburg and Istanbul and Chamonix?” Saint says, raising his eyebrow at her and handing her back her phone. “I should think so. Here go you.” He pauses. “While not officially sanctioned, the Agency figured out years ago that friends are going to find ways to talk, and if they’re going to talk, it’s in everyone’s best interest to have them talk on something more secure than a street phone. But absolutely no assignment or job details. No locations, no fun stories. No photos. No matter how safe we make it, someone can always find the paper trail if they try hard enough, so save the shop talk for in-person.”

“Got it,” Jane says automatically, taking her phone back. The new app is open; it looks like basic iMessage, though Jane knows there must be layers and layers of encryption and security behind it, just like everything else on this phone. Despite herself and her desire to not give anything else away to Saint, she finds herself tapping her way to Sabina’s contact information almost immediately.

“I think we’re done for today,” Saint says wryly, after a beat. “See you tomorrow, Jane.”

“Yeah, okay,” Jane says absently, thumbs flying.

_Hey_

_Hey! Saint unlocked it for you, too, I guess -- was hoping he would_

_How are you? How’s home?_

_I’m fine. Home is… the same, weirdly_

_But doesn’t really feel like home_

_I have grief counseling once a day, it’s maddening_

_Can’t wait to get back to work_

_How was the job?_

_Fine. Easy, like I said. In and out in a few days_

_Damage?_

_Minimal - burned my arm on an iron and some bruises, that’s the worst of it_

_Burns suck, I’m sorry_

_An iron?_

_I’ll tell you the whole story when I see you next_

Jane knows Sabina can’t tell her details, even over the Agency app, but it’s still hard to hear. Read. Whatever.

_You’d better_

_How’s LA?_

_Can neither confirm nor deny_

_Shit, sorry_

_Any idea when you’re getting back in the field?_

_I hope soon_

_I’m going crazy_

_Sorry, it’s rough_

_Hey, so I’m wiped and crashing, need to nap for a bit_

_But it was good to hear from you_

_I’m glad we can talk like this_

_Me too_

_Sleep well_

_You too babygirl_

\------

Jane spends the next day deep cleaning her apartment, newly energized and suddenly disgusted by the thick layer of dust she had somehow managed to ignore until now. She starts from the top down in each room, dusting the tops of her windows and wiping down the walls before cleaning the surfaces and the floor, the way her mum taught her (“Remember that dust also follows the laws of gravity, Jane”). 

She keeps an eye on the time. If Sabina wakes up at 9am in LA (assuming she’s in LA), that’s 6pm in Paris.

She gets a text at 4:30pm, her time.

_The neighbors across the street got a new dog_

_Wow, you’re up early_

_Is the dog cute_

_Are you keeping tabs on my sleep patterns now_

_But yes this is very early for me, I have to go do a thing that requires me to be awake at this unreasonable hour_

_Of course the dog is cute, how could he not be cute_

_Wish I could send you a pic_

_What, of you or the dog?_

_Sorry I didn’t mean that how it sounded_

Fuckkkkkk. Jane wants to die.

_lol_

_I meant of the dog but hey, I get it if you miss me_

_I miss your cooking, that’s for sure_

_Aw, you’re cute_

_I miss you too_

This is the fucking problem with texting: Jane has _no idea_ how to interpret any of this. When no additional response appears to be forthcoming, she types out, feeling like a coward:

_So what kind of dog is it?_

\------

After seven days of daily sessions Saint declares her to be fit for active duty and decreases their meetings to once a week. Jane shows up at the Paris outpost bright and early for her first day back, smiling her greetings at the Angels and Bosleys she knows and nodding acknowledgements at those she doesn’t. She spends an hour catching up on recent Agency goings-on, skimming the (redacted) After Action reports available on the servers (not that she’s looking for any clues about what Sabina had been doing, of course, and it’s not like she finds anything useful anyway), and gossiping with a couple of the older Angels in the locker room. 

“Hey, you wanna go a round?” Natalia invites her, wrapping up her hands. “Been a while since I beat you.”

Jane rolls her eyes. She likes Natalia, but she’s always been a little _extra_ , to use one of Sabina’s preferred terms.

But she wants the practice, and she and Natalia are pretty evenly matched, so she says, “Sure, why not.”

“Damn, Kano,” Natalia says twenty minutes later, when Jane has her pinned against the mat. She taps Jane’s shin and Jane eases off, offering the other woman a hand up. Natalia stands, breathing hard and dripping sweat, and regards Jane with consideration. “You’ve picked up some new moves since we last sparred. Who have you been training with?”

“What?” Jane asks, leaning with her hands on her knees, out of breath herself. “I’ve been on assignment and shore leave. Nothing fancy.”

“Well, I wouldn’t call it nothing. Like that little shoulder-check thing? Never seen that move before. Where’d you learn it?”

Oh. That’s Sabina’s move, the shoulder thing.

“Huh,” Jane says, turning it over in her mind. 

“It’s not bad! It’s just surprising,” Natalia says with a shrug. “Whatever you’ve been doing, I like it.”

\------

_Apparently I picked up some fight moves from you_

_lol_

_Really?_

_I’d say sorry, but I’m not_

_How was your first day back?_

_Fine -- uneventful_

_And yet you got in a fight_

_I didn’t get in a fight, I was training_

_I know I know, only teasing_

_No job yet?_

_Saint said something’s probably coming down the pipeline for me in the next week_

_He said to brush up on… well, something I’m not a fan of, so_

_That should be… fun_

_Yikes. Well I hope it isn’t too bad_

_Let me know before you head out_

_And if you end up in my neck of the woods you should stop by, tell me all about it_

_Unlikely, but of course I will_

_And you still owe me a visit, you know_

_I’m working on it, cutie_

_Give me time_

\------

After that, Jane’s days take on a rhythm, and that rhythm is Sabina Wilson, even though the woman is nine hours and an ocean away.

Jane usually wakes up (0600 GMT+1) as Sabina is settling down for the evening (2200 GMT -8): Sabina texts her snippets from her day as Jane showers and grinds her coffee and makes her morning oatmeal. Jane goes to work and Sabina goes to sleep (eventually), reappearing on Jane’s screen usually right as Jane is starting to make dinner (1800 GMT+1, 0900 GMT-8). Jane used to eat a lot more dinners at the Agency, just because it kept her from needing to cook, but she finds herself going home by 6pm more and more often, so that she can be on her phone without interruption.

Occasionally Sabina texts her later, during the morning of Jane’s workday; Jane does her best to respond, and gets in the habit of going for a mid-morning coffee break every day to the cafe around the corner, right around the time Sabina usually goes to bed (1000 GMT+1, 0100 GMT-8). Perhaps it’s too much, perhaps it’s too involved, but she suspects Sabina does the same for her, that Sabina takes a mid-afternoon break most days to tell Jane to have a good rest, to sleep well (2300 GMT+1, 1400 GMT-8).

It’s maybe not the healthiest arrangement ever, now that Jane thinks about it, but it’s what she’s working with.

The crazy thing is that it’s not that she was _lonely_ before—six months ago, Jane would never have described herself as lonely. But at the same time, she looks back and thinks that her life must have been empty without this friendship with Sabina, without the little frisson of energy she feels every time her phone pings, without the jolt in her stomach every time Sabina calls her a stupid nickname or deliberately (flirtatiously) misunderstands Jane’s texts. She can’t talk to Sabina about anything _real_ , not over this stupid messenger app anyway, but still.

Jane doesn’t know how she did it before.

\------

_Got the job details. I’ll be radio silent starting tomorrow_

It’s the middle of Sabina’s workday, and yet her reply comes almost immediately.

_Thanks for the heads up_

_You feeling okay about it?_

_Yeah. Should be short, too_

_Like, two days max_

_Oh wow, one of those_

_Well, I’ll be thinking about you_

Jane watches the blue dots appear and disappear for a minute or more before Sabina’s next message appears. For the amount of time she spent writing it, it’s short.

_Be careful_

_I’m always careful_

_I’ll let you know before I leave_

It’s a one-woman cat burglar job in Monaco: infiltrate under the cover of darkness, get to the safe, crack the safe, get the stolen floor plans, get out. Don’t get seen, don’t get caught.

It’s the safecracking part that Jane hates, even though logically she knows she’s pretty good at it. It’s something about the tight timing, the precision, and the fact that at the end of it she doesn’t actually get to beat anyone up: just a lot of mental anxiety for so little satisfaction.

Still, it feels good to have her first job back go off without a hitch. The Bosley on the assignment is one she’s worked with before a few times before, before she had been sort of unofficially paired off with Edgar; they get along fine, which is good because for most of the job’s 40 hours of surveillance and 2 hours of actual thievery, it’s just the two of them. Jane thinks this Bosley is Norwegian, or some type of Scandinavian: he’s tall and blond and sort of pointy, but with a soothing accent and a restful demeanor. He has her back, Jane knows. Nevertheless, Edgar’s absence smarts. When Jane scurries into the van that’s waiting for her at the exfil location, she half expects to see him behind the wheel, even though intellectually she knows he won’t be there.

When she re-links her phone to the Agency network, she has fourteen texts from Sabina.

_I hope it’s going okay_

_I know you aren’t checking your messages just thought I’d say hi_

_This is not to imply I do not have complete confidence in you I just_

_Was thinking about you_

_Okay goodnight, wherever you are_

_Well it’s morning now and sorry for all those texts last night_

_Neighbor dog update: he’s afraid of bicycles and pigeons, apparently_

_But not cars? Not sure how that works_

_Anyway, things are boring here, but I did hear a fun Elena story through the grapevine_

_Apparently she’s doing great, not that I’m surprised_

_Still working on the heights thing though_

_Okay I’m going to work, I hope you’re… still okay_

_I mean I know you’re okay but_

_You know_

Jane checks the timestamp; Sabina’s last text was seven hours ago. 

_Hey, I’m back on the grid_

_All good here_

Jane doesn’t really expect a response, because it’s 3am in Los Angeles. But she gets one immediately.

_Hey! Glad to hear it_

_Sorry about all my texts_

_Guess I just got used to talking to you a lot_

_Shouldn’t you be asleep? It’s 3am_

_Couldn’t sleep_

_So how’d it go_

_Damage?_

_Went fine, all to plan_

_No damage_

_I’ve gotta go file my AA and get checked out, and you should go to sleep_

_Let’s talk tomorrow?_

_Yeah_

_I’m glad you’re safe_

_Thanks_

\------

A month and two more short jobs later, Jane wakes up on Monday dreading Friday already. It’s a day that’s been on her calendar for two months now, and the closer it’s gotten the more short-tempered Jane’s been. Everyone at the facility has been giving her a wide berth, except for Saint, who has been popping up even more than usual, offering her weird vegetable smoothies and homemade granola bars and god knows what else.

The first thing she sees that morning on her phone is a string of texts from Sabina.

_So, I know the ceremony for Edgar is on Friday_

_Bos is flying out, of course, and I got permission to go too_

_Would that be okay with you?_

_I’d like to be there for him_

_And you_

Jane, unable to deal with the resulting swirling mess of grief and excitement and affection and resentment in her stomach, puts the phone face down on her dresser and doesn’t respond to Sabina.

More texts come in a few hours later. Jane is in the firing range testing out the Agency’s latest grenade launcher, because the explosions are satisfying and distracting.

_So I’m interpreting from your silence that it wouldn’t actually be okay_

_Which is fine, I totally get it, I should have been more thoughtful_

_I’ll be_

_I’ll be thinking about you on Friday, though_

_Okay, um, hope you’re having a good day_

Sighing, Jane strips off her gloves.

_Hey, I’m sorry, it’s just… been a weird week_

_Of course it’s fine if you come_

_It’d be nice_

_As long as you don’t hold anything I say or do against me_

_Can’t promise I’ll be great company_

_Are you sure?_

_Yes_

_You’re welcome to stay with me but it’s a one bedroom_

_Well as long as you’re sure. And thanks for the offer - I think Bos and I are getting in late on Thursday_

_So I’ll probably just sleep on the plane and then crash at the outpost_

_But we can see where Friday takes us_

_I can sleep anywhere_

_Okay_

_Hey, thank you for coming_

_Sorry I was a shit, but it means a lot_

_Of course_

_See you Friday_

\------

Starting Wednesday more and more people arrive for the ceremony, and the Paris outpost fills up with voices and languages and go-bags and more Angels than Jane has ever seen in the locker room. Jane recognizes some familiar faces, Angels and Bosleys she’s worked with on various jobs—mostly the European and North African desks, but she also sees Leanne and Vanessa from the Singapore job, Kerry from New York, Akiko from that disastrous assignment in Montreal, and Magdalena from the Lima outpost.

“Hola, nena,” Magda says, coming up directly to Jane as soon as she sees her and dropping a kiss on each cheek. “T’echaba de menos — ¿qué tal estás?”

“Magda,” Jane says with a small smile, as much as she can manage. “I’ve been better.” As always, Jane warms immediately to Magda’s casual, friendly openness. Magda and Edgar had also worked closely together in Barcelona before Magda had relocated, and Edgar had always spoken highly of her.

“I know,” Magdalena says. “Have you seen Nicole and Rochelle? I was thinking we should get together on Thursday night. Just the four of us.” The reason is unspoken: Nicole and Rochelle had been Edgar’s other primary Angels. Saint had encouraged Jane to reach out to them, actually, after Hamburg, but she hasn’t found the will.

“Nicole’s around here somewhere,” Jane says. “I saw her yesterday. I think Rochelle is out on assignment but due back today, or tomorrow for sure. They wouldn't keep her in the field through Friday.”

“Excellent. I’m going to go settle in and see if I can track them down,” Magda says. “But save Thursday—we can do dinner.”

“Dinner” on Thursday night ends up being another of Saint’s cheese plate masterpieces in a side kitchen at the Agency, complete with sliced fruits and nuts and all sorts of jams and compotes. Jane finds several bottles of Edgar’s favorite wines in the fridge, also certainly left there by Saint: muscadet from the Loire Valley, Alsatian dry riesling, Willamette pinot noir. Jane doesn’t know Rochelle particularly well, but she likes Magda and Nicole, and the conversation flows easily but quietly among the four of them, each sitting with Edgar’s memory by their side. Occasionally an Angel or Bosley will pass by the kitchen, but when they see the four Angels gathered in there, they leave them undisturbed with nods of respect and acknowledgement.

“Do you guys still hear his little sayings in your head, sometimes?” Jane asks, three glasses of riesling down. 

“Worse,” Magda says, picking at the remaining almonds in the bowl. “I find myself _saying_ them sometimes.”

“God, I know,” Rochelle says. “I was training with one of the new Angels the other day, from the latest class, and I said—wait for it—‘Try to find a way to surprise me,’ just like he always used to say.” Jane snorts. “And then,” Rochelle continues, “the Angel—who, by the way, was like _maybe_ twenty-one, and fresh off the Compound—says to me, ‘Yes Bos.’”

“No,” Magda hisses. “She called you Bosley?”

“I think it was automatic,” Rochelle says wryly. “At least, I hope it was. I mean, I _am_ like fifteen years older than she is.”

“I think you’d be a great Bosley, actually,” Nicole says, swirling the last sip of wine around in her glass. 

Rochelle hums, looking around at the four of them. The Angel-to-Bosley promotion isn’t really something that’s talked about, and as everyone knows, only one Angel has ever managed it. “I’ve thought about it,” Rochelle admits eventually. “I’ve been an Angel for more than ten years, you know. My body’s going to give up on me eventually.”

“And you don’t wanna take the traditional Angel path of getting your giant buyout package at 42, running security for some corporation for another decade or so, and then retiring to a villa in Tuscany at 55?” Magda asks baldly.

“I don’t know,” Rochelle says slowly. “I… Edgar wanted me to pursue it. The promotion, I mean. We talked about it a little, right before.” Rochelle presses her lips together, and Jane chews on the inside of her cheek. “I actually think that’s why he chose all of us: he saw it in us,” Rochelle continues, driving the knife home. “He always told me that operational intelligence and strategy can’t be taught. That I should use them.”

“That they’re gifts,” Jane murmurs. She sees Nicole and Magda nod.

“So none of you ever thought about it?” Rochelle asks, looking at each of them. “Not once?”

“Maybe once or twice,” Magda admits. “I don’t know that I want to work for the Agency for the rest of my life, though. And the Tuscan villa sounds pretty appealing.”

Jane shakes her head. “I think I’d miss the fight,” she says. “I don’t think I’d be able to sit on the sidelines and just, you know, wait for the Angels to take care of it. I want to be _in_ the fight.”

Rochelle laughs. “Well, you’re still young. Come talk to me in a decade, when everything hurts all the time and the newly-winged Angels just keep getting younger and younger.” She looks at Jane shrewdly. “I think you’d be good at it too, though. For what it’s worth.”

“Thanks,” Jane says, touched.

“More red?” Nicole asks after a minute, breaking the tension.

“God yes,” Magda says, and holds out her glass.

As Nicole is pouring, Jane sees two figures pass by the kitchen out of the corner of her eye. Bosley’s heels and long camel coat are hard to miss, almost as hard to miss as the shock of Sabina’s blonde hair and her whole overall aura. She’s wearing track pants and combat boots and her ever-present white tank top, and something warm and nervous wriggles in Jane’s stomach at the sight.

Sabina slows and almost pivots when she makes eye contact with Jane, but Bosley stops her with a hand on her arm, murmurs something in her ear.

“Is that…” Nicole starts.

“One second,” Jane says, already standing up and heading out the door, feeling the eyes of the other three Angels following her through the glass walls of the kitchen.

“Hello, Jane,” Bosley says when Jane approaches. She takes Jane’s hands and gives them a squeeze. “It’s good to see you.”

“Hi, Bos,” Jane says. “Thanks for coming.” She turns to Sabina, and barely represses the urge to fall into her arms; she has a feeling Sabina would catch her, but that it might cause a stir. “You too,” she says instead, unsure what kind of greeting is appropriate for someone you spent two weeks on vacation with, hugged goodbye, and have been texting non-stop ever since.

“Hey,” Sabina says with a nod, short and sweet. Her eyes flick to where Magda, Rochelle, and Nicole are almost certainly watching them. 

“Hey,” Jane says back.

“So are those…” Sabina asks, with a jerk of her head.

“Edgar’s other Angels,” Jane says succinctly, because there’s really no point in denying it. “Come on, I’ll introduce you.”

“Oh, no, really, I don’t think—” Sabina says, but Jane and Bos are already walking toward the kitchen.

“Hello Magdalena, Rochelle,” Bosley says, air kissing each in turn. She offers a hand to Nicole. “I don’t think we’ve met—Bosley.”

“Nicole,” the Angel says, with a nod.

“This is Sabina,” Jane says. “Magdalena—”

“We’ve met,” Sabina and Magda say simultaneously.

“And Nicole, and Rochelle.” Sabina nods her greetings.

“You were the one on the Hamburg job,” Nicole says flatly. Jane is surprised by the hostility in her voice, until she realizes. Sabina was on the Hamburg job, when Edgar had died. Shit. Of course.

“Oh,” Sabina says, biting her lip and looking down at her toe. “Ah, yes. I was.” Jane wants to reach out to her, but doesn’t.

Rochelle clears her throat and lays a hand on Nicole’s arm. “It’s nice to meet you, Sabina,” she says, and while she doesn’t sound openly hostile like Nicole, she still sounds coolly distant.

“Well, we’re sorry to interrupt,” Bosley says briskly. “We’re going to settle in and leave you to it, and see you all tomorrow. Nicole, it was nice to meet you. Come on, Sabina.”

“Nice to meet you,” Sabina repeats softly to Nicole and Rochelle, with a nod to Magda as she follows Bosley out of the kitchen. Jane is left with three pairs of Angel eyes staring at her.

“Excuse me for a minute,” Jane says, before she can think too much more about it, jogging to catch up with Sabina and Bosley as they make their way to the elevator.

“Hey, I’m sorry about that,” Jane says, finally able to put her hand on Sabina’s arm. “I didn’t think.”

“They blame me,” Sabina says, still looking at the floor. “Well, maybe not Magda. But Nicole and Rochelle for sure.” She exhales. “Maybe they should. Maybe I shouldn’t have come. If I’d been a little faster, if I’d made it to the car with you, maybe…”

Jane has heard this particular thought spiral of Sabina’s before: first in the safe house immediately after it all, and again one late night in Martinique, with too much weed in her head and not enough food in her stomach. Maybe at one point, in the immediate aftermath of Hamburg, Jane herself had thought some version of it. But she knows, logically, that none of it’s true, that there’s no way anyone will ever know.

“They’re grieving,” Bosley says softly. “They don’t blame you, not really. It’s nothing to do with you.”

“Felt like it was a little bit about me,” Sabina mutters. The elevator pings.

“It’s not,” Bosley says firmly. “Going up—this is me.” She steps in and looks back at Jane and Sabina with a small, sad smile. “Goodnight, you two. Get some rest: tomorrow’s going to be a hard day.”

The door closes and Sabina and Jane are left alone, standing in the elevator bay.

It pings again: going down.

“This is me,” Sabina echos, looking down at where Jane is still holding her arm. “Look, I’m pretty wiped and I think I smell like an airplane, but if you wanna come hang out for a minute you’re welcome.”

Jane shakes her head. “I should get back to them,” she says, regretfully. “But Bos is right, you know. I was there. Hodak would have gotten to us regardless, and if you’d been in the car with us, who would have been there to fish me and Elena out of the Elbe?”

Sabina bites her lip and says nothing. The elevator pings again, insistently. “I’ll see you tomorrow?” Jane asks.

“Course,” Sabina says. “Breakfast?”

“Yeah,” Jane agrees. “Yeah, breakfast.” She takes a deep breath. “It’s… really good to see you,” she admits, after a beat. 

Sabina gives her a half smile. “Hey, you too,” she says. “C’mere, you ridiculous human,” she says, and then she’s up on her toes, putting her arms around Jane. “Thanks for forgiving me,” she whispers, voice heavy.

“Nothing to forgive, meathead,” Jane murmurs back, sinking down into Sabina’s arms. “You know that.”

They embrace for a long moment, and then the elevator pings for a third time, and Sabina lets go with a laugh. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says, dragging her bag into the elevator before the doors close.

“Goodnight, Sabina,” Jane says.

\------

Jane wakes up on Friday morning with an ache in her stomach. She can tell that Sabina is trying to distract her over breakfast, but it’s not really successful.

“Okay, this is ridiculous,” Sabina says, after Jane has finished shredding her pain au chocolat into tiny pieces rather than actually eating it.

“What?” Jane says, even though she’s pretty certain Sabina is referring to Jane’s whole entire _mood_.

Sabina rolls her eyes. “Don’t get cute with me. Come on, you’re not going to eat that anyway. Up.” She plops some euros down on the cafe table and stands up, looking down expectantly at Jane.

“Where are we going?” Jane asks, following Sabina out of the cafe.

“You know the old Angel saying,” Sabina says. She looks to the left before darting across Boulevard de Courcelles against the red light; Jane trots after her. “When it gets this bad, the only options are to fight it out or fuck it out.” She eyes Jane. “And unless you’ve got a secret lover hidden away in your apartment I don’t know about, you’re left with me and the training room.”

Jane says nothing, so distracted by Sabina saying the words _fuck it out_ that she almost trips over her feet.

It’s still early, especially for a Friday, and Jane suspects most people are taking the morning off before the afternoon ceremony, so the locker room and training ring are empty. She and Sabina change together, back to back, and head out to the mats in silence.

“So are you gonna tell me about it, or what?” Sabina asks, not looking at Jane and instead dropping into a low hamstring stretch. She’s in Agency-issued leggings and sports bra, identical to Jane’s kit.

Jane focuses on wrapping her hands. “Tell you about what.”

“What’s going on in that head of yours,” Sabina says. “That whole, like, wad of emotional compost you’ve been ruminating on all morning.”

“I’m sorry,” Jane says, hearing her voice sharpen. “The _what_? What is wrong with you?”

“I’m just saying,” Sabina says, keeping her head down and her voice flat. 

“Today is the memorial for Edgar,” Jane hisses. “I’m not allowed to, like, feel sad about it? About my Bosley getting murdered right in front of me?”

“I didn’t say that,” Sabina says mildly, and stands up. “You ready?”

Jane steps into the ring for an answer. “Then what the hell are you on about,” she presses. She falls into her familiar fight stance and Sabina does the same, center of mass low, hands up, eyes alert.

“Well, you said you don’t blame me,” Sabina says, feinting to the right. Jane doesn’t fall for it. “Does that mean you blame someone else?” She quirks an eyebrow at Jane and does come at her this time, but Jane blocks it easily. “Yourself?”

“How dare you,” Jane whispers. She snaps her leg out in a kick and Sabina ducks, but not quick enough; Jane’s foot catches her on the side.

“Well, if you wanted to talk to someone about it,” Sabina says, wincing, “I figured I’d offer my services.” She comes back again at Jane with a flurry of punches and elbows, but Jane can tell she’s just getting started, still warming up.

“I don’t need to talk to you about anything.”

“Doesn’t mean you _don’t_ talk to me, though,” Sabina say. “And again,” she pauses to catch her breath, “it doesn’t need to be me. Maybe needs to be someone, though.”

“I’m doing just fine, thank you very much.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Sabina says, and it doesn’t sound cruel but it also doesn’t sound particularly kind either. “You seem to be managing this _so well_.” The sarcasm coating Sabina’s words is thick. “And, I mean, everyone else knows how well it’s been going too, yeah?” She spins away, out of range of Jane’s incoming blow.

“What are you talking about?”

“Come on, Jane,” Sabina says, ducking and rolling so she somehow appears behind Jane, gets her forearm around Jane’s throat, not tight enough to choke her but close enough to whisper in her ear. “They’ve sent you out on, what, two jobs since you’ve been back? Both short in-and-outs, no actual action, just sneaking around?” Jane throws her elbow back into Sabina’s kidney and is rewarded when she hears the soft grunt of pain. “You’re effectively still benched, even if they’re telling you you’re not.”

“Enough!” Jane snaps, whirling around. She’s breathing hard and so is Sabina, and they circle each other for a few seconds. “I know what you’re doing.”

“I mean, sure,” Sabina says with a shrug and a wince. “But is it working?”

“Fuck you.”

“Maybe someday,” Sabina agrees, tilting her head. “Not today, though.” She spins and throws out her leg, catching Jane behind the ankle and knocking her to the ground. “Come on, babygirl,” and it’s the nickname that does it, of all things. “Just try and hit me.”

“Stop pushing me, Sabina,” Jane says, rolling over and sliding back up to her feet in one motion. “Not today.”

“Think you can’t?” Sabina asks, meeting her eyes. In them Jane sees nothing but a direct and uncomplicated challenge. “Scared to try?”

Jane shakes her head to clear it. “Stop being an asshole. You know I’m not scared.”

“Then don’t hold back,” Sabina says, “and I won’t.”

After that, Jane loses the plot for a little. She and Sabina move like they’re dancing, but violently; the pauses where they circle one another become less frequent, and Jane feels Sabina stop pulling her punches and Jane feels herself stop pulling hers. She lands a blow with her elbow on Sabina’s cheekbone and breaks the skin; Sabina spits out blood, and then they keep going. Jane increases her tempo and Sabina matches her, sliding more into defense as Jane launches furious assault after assault. It’s harder than Jane’s ever fought without actually being in combat threatened by an actual assailant, and eventually, Jane stops thinking and just lets go.

Dropping into the zone is freeing. The fight becomes a pattern, she and Sabina trading off offense and defense, switching places, landing and dodging punches and kicks and trips. Jane doesn’t feel the blows that Sabina does land, doesn’t spare a moment to worry about the massive bruises she knows are already forming across her body. The two of them are a poem of limbs, a blur of power and energy and emotion and beauty, flying and colliding and breaking apart before being pulled back together, inevitably, by some mysterious and violent force, to do it again, to keep at it, to fight back, to push harder. She sinks down into her aggression and her frustration and her pain and her guilt, and she forces all of it into energy, uses it the way MI-6 and Edgar had taught her, folds it into force and pushes it out through her fists and her shoulders and her knees and the soles of her feet.

And Sabina—Sabina catches it, time and time again, takes the force and turns it back on Jane, gives as good as she gets. Jane recognizes lots of her moves by now, but that doesn’t mean they still don’t take her by surprise, doesn’t mean that Sabina still doesn’t get her with the shoulder-check move even though Jane knows it’s coming, even though she sees Sabina shift her weight, even though she prepares for it: it still knocks her down.

Jane’s never sparred with anyone like this before, has never trusted anyone so much that she lets herself go almost entirely. It feels like flying; it feels free. 

The fight seems like it takes forever (it maybe takes ten minutes), but it ends with Sabina chest-down on the mat, Jane’s knee in between her shoulder blades and Jane’s hands twisting her arms up in an immobilizing hold.

“Okay, okay,” Sabina pants, tapping her fingers on Jane’s forearm. “Yield, lemme go. Ouch, Jane.”

Jane relaxes and lets go, and Sabina rolls over onto her back and just lies there, panting. It’s over; the adrenaline drops and Jane collapses down onto the mat along with it, barely staying in a sit. She folds her head down onto her knees, trying to catch her breath and compose herself. Her face is wet, she realizes now: it’s mostly sweat, but there are probably tears there too.

Eventually she feels Sabina’s hand on her forearm. “Damn, Kano,” Sabina says. Jane tilts her head to look at her with bleary eyes. “That was something.” Sabina’s eyes are warm and she’s smiling and she grips Jane’s arm tight as Jane breathes, in and out, loud enough that it sounds almost like a sob.

Eventually Sabina sits up.

“Oh,” she says, voice sounding startled enough that Jane looks up too.

They have amassed an audience, apparently. Not that many people but enough, maybe fifteen Angels and half as many Bosleys, all staring at her and Sabina with some combination of admiration, surprise, consideration, and astonishment. It’s silent enough that Jane’s and Sabina’s panting breaths echo cavernously throughout the room. 

After a few beats of absolute stillness, Saint steps out from the crowd. “All right, show’s over, everyone,” he says, shooing the onlookers away. “Get back to work.” He turns to Jane and Sabina, looking them over critically as people slowly trail out.

“Goddamn,” Jane hears someone whisper—it sounds a little like Magda.

“That was quite a show,” Saint says to the two of them, leaning over the guard ropes, voice bone-dry and unimpressed. “Any serious injury? Do not lie to me, I will know.” Jane shakes her head and feels Sabina do the same. “Okay. Jane, go shower and come see me when you’re done. Sabina, let me look at your mouth real quick, it’s still bleeding.”

In a daze, Jane stands and offers a hand down to Sabina. When she pulls her up, Jane doesn’t let go, gripping her forearm tightly.

“Are you okay?” Jane murmurs. She feels empty, emotionally depleted, but not enough that the visual of a hard-breathing Sabina, mouth bloody red and face shiny with sweat, doesn’t awaken in her a terrifying blend of protectiveness and desire.

“I’m good,” Sabina says. “Go shower. I’ll find you soon? I think you’re gonna crash in maybe ten.”

Jane nods, and flees to the locker room.

\------

As predicted, ten minutes later Sabina finds Jane showered and wrapped in a towel, wet hair hanging freely down her back, sitting immobile on a locker room bench staring into the middle distance.

“Could you give us the room, please?” Sabina says to the other Angels in the locker room, the ones who have been murmuring and staring at Jane for the past several minutes.

Sabina sits down and picks up Jane’s hand. “Hey,” she says, knocking her shoulder against Jane’s. “You okay? Was that too much? I’ve been told frequently I’m too much.”

Jane laughs softly. “No. It wasn’t. I feel better. Like, so much better.” She squeezes Sabina’s hand. “Thank you. Nobody’s ever—done that for me, before.”

Sabina ducks her head, but not before Jane can see her grin. “Hey, anytime you need someone to berate you enough to the point where you feel the need to punch them in the face, you know who to call.”

“How’s your mouth?” Jane asks abruptly, lifting a hand to trace Sabina’s lip with her thumb without thinking. Sabina’s eyes widen slightly.

“Um,” she says, and Jane drops her hand like she’s been burned. “Fine. Just bit my cheek, Saint checked it out.” Sabina clears her throat. “What about you, are you okay? Did I hurt you?”

“I’m fine,” Jane says. “Bruises, but nothing Saint can’t help with.” Sabina holds her gaze, and then nods sharply.

“Good,” she says, standing. “He still wants to see you, and I need a shower. Are we… okay?”

“We’re okay,” Jane says.


	3. Paris, Part II

After all of the fuss that morning, the ceremony itself is uneventful. Jane sits with the rest of Angels, ordered by seniority and alphabet in neat rows behind the Bosleys and Saints. A few of the Agency bigwigs show up, and two of the Paris Bosleys give short remarks, and overall it’s nice, but boring. Maybe it’s the dullness of the ceremony, and maybe it’s the emotional release from the fight this morning, and maybe it’s the fact that Jane can see Sabina, two rows up and to the left, for the entire time, the fact that Sabina has her face turned just ever so slightly in Jane’s direction, that once or twice she twists around to look at Jane, as if to reassure herself Jane’s still there, that Jane’s okay—maybe it’s all of those reasons, and maybe it’s just that rituals and ceremony are calming, but Jane feels peaceful afterwards, in a way she didn’t expect.

Sabina and Saint and Bos whisk Jane away in a car afterwards, Bosley driving just this side of impulsively along the streets of Paris. Sabina sits in the back with Jane and holds her hand the entire time.

They end up with carryout kebabs and gummi bears and too many bottles of rosé, sneaking down the steps below one of the bridges under the cover of early evening light to park themselves on the flagstones that line the banks of the Seine. Jane, who hadn’t been able to eat breakfast and had barely managed half a grain bowl at lunch, gets more drunk more quickly than she means to, and by the time it’s nightfall and the streetlights flick on she feels completely useless, listing against Sabina’s shoulder and listening to the others tell stories about Edgar. None of them ask anything of her, none of them _need_ anything from her, and Jane lets herself drift, soothed by the murmur of their voices and soft laughter, feeling the world tilt and spin slightly askew on its axis as the warm glow of summer nighttime Paris reflects and refracts upon the gently moving river.

Saint and Bos call it a night eventually, leaving Jane with Sabina, who promises the others that she’ll get Jane home safely (and who, Jane thinks, stopped drinking a while ago).

“Well,” Sabina says into the ensuing silence, critically examining a gummi bear in the faint streetlight. “It’s not how I had originally imagined my Paris visit going, but overall it’s been pretty okay so far.”

Jane giggles. “I haven’t really given you a good welcome.” For some reason this thought is _hilarious_.

“I have actually been to Paris before, you know. Many times. It’s not like I needed a _welcome_.”

Jane hums and takes another gulp of wine. “I guess I meant I’ve been sort of a mess, while you’ve been here.”

“Nah,” Sabina says. “Well, sure, sort of, but you were way worse in Martinique.”

“Really?” Jane asks, genuinely surprised. 

Sabina gives her a side-eye. “You may not remember that hot-tub freakout where you stopped breathing for like ten seconds, but I sure as hell do.” 

“Fair,” Jane says. She leans back and looks at Sabina, trying to focus her eyes, but the world is slightly too fuzzy and there are, in fact, two and a half Sabinas swimming in her vision. She squints at what she thinks is the real one. “You know what I remember about Martinique? The club, that night. Before those assholes, I mean. The _dancing_.” She sways a little, remembering. “I wanted you to come dance with me, you know. I love dancing. I wanted you.” _Whoops, a little too real there._

“Mmm,” Sabina hums. “I’m not a great dancer, actually. I liked watching you, though. You were amazing.”

“Really?” Jane leans into the compliment, rolls around in it in a way she wouldn’t let herself if she were sober.

“Really,” Sabina says wryly. “And you, my friend, are fishing for compliments.”

“Maybe,” Jane says, swaying her way against Sabina until she’s leaning her head on the other woman’s shoulder. “We should go dancing.”

“Now?” Sabina asks, laughing. “I mean, I guess places are still open, it’s not that late, but we’re not really dressed for it. And also, you’re… pretty drunk.”

“You’ll take care of me,” Jane says, ignoring the rest. “Like in Martinique.”

“Sure I will,” Sabina agrees easily. “Maybe another night, though.” Jane pouts. “Stop, you’re too cute,” Sabina mutters.

“I wanna go dancing with you,” Jane whines.

“Another night,” Sabina says, like a promise.

“Fine,” Jane says. And then abruptly, “I need to pee.”

Sabina snorts. “Okay. Like, immediately? Can you hold it until we get back to your place?”

Jane considers. “Maybe.”

“Well, it’s getting late. And chilly. We should head back anyway.” Sabina stands and starts gathering the empty wine bottles. She offers Jane a hand. “I think the Métro is still running. Do you wanna try it or do you wanna cab?”

“Cab,” Jane says immediately. She takes Sabina’s hand and nearly pulls the other woman down with her as she loses her balance.

“Woah woah,” Sabina says, stumbling. “Okay, come on, up you get.” Jane feels herself sway to her feet. “Man, I don’t think I ever saw you like this even in Martinique.”

“I didn’t get drunk in Martinique,” Jane insists. “Tipsy, yes. But now I am drunk.” She announces this last phrase loudly.

“Indeed you are,” Sabina agrees, in a way that makes Jane feel like she is being _handled_. “Come on, let's get up to the street and I’ll get us a cab.”

Sabina gives the driver Jane’s address, bundles her into the backseat, and when they arrive she takes Jane’s keys from her to unlock the front door after Jane drops them twice. The elevator is too small to hold them both so Sabina sends Jane up it, and takes the stairs herself. She still beats Jane to the third floor, and is unlocking Jane’s flat when Jane stumbles out of the elevator.

“You took my keys,” Jane pronounces, coming up behind Sabina and wrapping her hands around her waist. She doesn’t usually think about how much taller she is than Sabina, but in this position it’s hard to not notice. She noses along Sabina’s ear.

“I did,” Sabina says with a breathy little laugh. She finally jiggles the key just right so the lock drops. “Come on, in you go.”

“Bathroom,” Jane decides, and makes a beeline for it. Sabina snorts at her and locks the door behind them, flicking on the foyer lights.

She’s in the kitchen when Jane comes out of the bathroom. “This place is nice,” Sabina says, rummaging in Jane’s cabinets. “Where’s your tea? I know you have it, you’re like compulsively English about tea.”

Jane reaches around her to pull open the tea drawer, where she does indeed have at least eight different kinds. “I’m not compulsive,” she says.

“I knew it,” Sabina says, ignoring Jane. She picks up Jane’s kettle and fills it at the tap before lighting the stove. “What do you want?”

Jane knows she’s referring to the tea, but something about the sight of Sabina here, in Jane's kitchen, making tea like she belongs here, makes Jane think, _You. I want you._

And, because she’s drunk, she says it.

Sabina’s eyebrows go _way_ up, and she opens her mouth and says, “Wha—” but that’s as far as she gets because then Jane is kissing her, using her height to her advantage to back Sabina against the kitchen counter.

It’s not, objectively, a great kiss; even drunk as she is, Jane can tell. In fact, possibly it’s not great _because_ she’s drunk? Whatever. Her teeth clack against Sabina’s, is the thing, and Sabina’s mouth was sort of already open but there’s no tongue to the kiss so it’s just, like, weird lips and breath, and Jane pulls away pretty quickly, instantly regretting it.

Sabina stares at her, still looking shocked, and licks her lips. “Uh, wow,” she says, rubbing the back of her neck almost as if she can’t help it. “That was… unexpected.”

Jane thinks back to all of their gratuitous touching this evening, and the fight this morning that had been at least a little about sexual frustration, and about _“Fuck you,”_ and _“Maybe someday,”_ and says, “Was it really, though?” in a voice that somehow sounds _exactly_ like Bos.

It startles a laugh out of Sabina. “Well, I mean, not entirely,” she admits. “I’m shocked you actually did anything about it, is what I mean. It’s extremely ‘against the rules.’” She says this last bit in air quotes, as if to make sure Jane knows just how much Sabina herself cares about the rules.

“I’m drunk,” Jane says, which to her mind seems like justification enough. Something weird and uncertain chases itself across Sabina’s face and Jane hates it, so she keeps talking. “But that doesn’t mean I… hmmm.” Jane pauses. “Could we… try again? Maybe without my teeth this time?”

Sabina closes her eyes, just briefly. “Jane, you’re drunk,” she says, repeating Jane’s own words back at her.

“I know,” Jane acknowledges, because she is indeed drunk. “I know, I know, I just… I want…” 

She doesn’t know what she wants. All of a sudden the day comes rushing back at her: the dread, the fight, the ceremony, the grief. And worst of all, the possibility that she’s ruined the best thing in her life she has going on right now. Jane bites her lip and feels herself sag, a little; she takes a shaking breath, and the wine churns unpleasantly in her stomach.

“Jesus Christ,” she hears Sabina mutter. “You’re going to be the death of me,” and then Jane feels Sabina’s arms around her, hears herself inhale shakily and relax into the embrace.

“I’m sorry,” she says eventually, breathing in and out. “It’s just… been a day. Just… can we just pretend that never happened? I get it if you wanna go back to the outpost.”

Sabina pulls back and looks at her like she’s insane. “Are you kidding? I’m not leaving you like this,” she says, shaking her head. “And I’m… not saying no, either,” she continues slowly. “We can try again, if you want.” She meets Jane’s eyes directly. “But only that, nothing more. You’re drunk, and that’s my limit.”

Jane feels something nervous and warm start to glow in her stomach, down there along with all the wine. “Really?” 

Sabina shrugs. “One kiss isn’t going to mess us up,” she reasons. Jane’s not so sure, but she somehow manages to keep her mouth shut. “And you’re… sad, and want comfort, and I can give that to you. To be very basic and frank about it.” She flicks her gaze down to Jane’s mouth briefly. “And I’d also be lying if I said I didn’t want to, even though that was a pretty terrible first kiss.” She gives Jane a sheepish smile. “It’s probably all I’ll be able to think about tonight either way, so it might as well be a good one.”

Jane laughs a little, despite herself. “Really?” she asks again.

“Really,” Sabina says. She looks Jane up and down. “Although… Jesus, you’re so goddamn tall.” And then she hops up onto Jane’s counter, just parks herself there next to the sink and Jane’s olive oil cruet, and opens her arms. “Come here.” 

Jane does, hardly believing that this isn’t a dream, but even if it is a dream, she’ll take what she’s being offered. She steps into Sabina’s arms, into the vee of her legs, feels Sabina lightly hook her ankles together there against the back of Jane’s thighs. Arranged this way they’re of a height, and Sabina pulls Jane’s shoulders forward until Jane has her head resting in the crook of Sabina’s neck, until she feels Sabina’s hands stroking her hair and her back softly.

Sabina kisses her ear first, just a soft brush, and then tilts Jane’s face so she can press more kisses against her temple, her eyebrow, the bridge of her nose, the bone of her cheek. She goes delicately when she finds the bruise that’s splotching across Jane’s lower jaw from this morning, murmuring apologies as she ghosts over it, then comes up to press a kiss against the corner of Jane’s mouth. Jane’s body sings with each kiss, and she finds herself clutching at Sabina’s arms, the kisses and the alcohol coming together in a heady jumble that Jane just sinks down into.

“You amaze me,” Sabina murmurs, and then she’s kissing Jane properly, warm lips on Jane’s there in the golden glow of the kitchen up against the counter.

It starts slow and comforting, almost chaste, but moves quickly into something achy and hot; Jane feels herself press forward into it, feels Sabina’s legs tighten around her with a quick inhale. Sabina has both her hands cupped along Jane’s jaw and she uses it to keep control, to set the pace of the kiss. But it’s Jane who opens her mouth first, mindful of teeth this time; it’s Jane who deepens it, who lifts her hands to grip at Sabina’s hips and pull them even closer together. Sabina hums into it, and Jane feels their shared delight down to her bones.

It’s also Jane who gets handsy, which she will blame on the alcohol later; it’s Jane who slides a palm around to the small of Sabina’s back, slips it underneath the hem of Sabina’s shirt to feel the soft skin there, to lightly scrape her nails against it.

Sabina breaks the kiss with a half-gasp, half-groan. “Jane,” she murmurs, sounding out of breath, which makes Jane feel _very_ pleased with herself. “Jane, that wasn’t part of the deal,” she says, even as she wriggles under Jane’s touch.

“Why not?” Jane asks, and recaptures Sabina’s mouth. This kiss, as directed by Jane, is more dirty, with more intent behind it—she feels Sabina inhale sharply and clutch at her, a little, as Jane slides her other hand up to grip her shoulder. Jane pushes her advantage, gets a little more adventurous; she hoiks Sabina up until they’re pressed fully together, until Sabina’s legs come up to wrap themselves around Jane’s waist, until Jane can grind a little against her. It’s electric; it’s addictive. Sabina allows it, rolls her hips into it even, right up until Jane’s traitorous hand slides down so she can slip her thumb against Sabina’s nipple, where she’s braless underneath her shirt.

Sabina gasps and arches into it, breathy and hot and _so good_. She lets Jane keep at it for long moments, torturous through the cotton of her shirt as she gasps into Jane’s mouth, before she eventually pushes Jane away with a frustrated groan. “All right, enough,” she says, and her voice sounds _wrecked_ , rough and low and deeply, deeply sexual. She’s breathing hard, mouth bitten red. Jane can’t resist it; she leans forward.

“One more,” she whispers against Sabina’s lips.

“Jane.”

“One more,” Jane insists. “I’m sad, remember?”

“I think you’re pushing your luck on that one,” Sabina says ruefully. “One more, but only,” she continues, catching Jane’s wrists in her hands and gripping them hard, “if you stop touching me.”

“Why?” Jane murmurs, flexing; she could probably break out of Sabina’s hold if she wants to, but she suspects that if she did, their moment, this stolen slice of space and time, would end.

“Because I made the rules,” Sabina says, tightening her grip and pecking Jane on the lips. “And because your hands are making me lose my mind.” She sits up straighter so she’s just a hair taller than Jane, and holds Jane’s wrists firmly in place as she kisses her. It’s forceful but also calm, which should be a contradiction but somehow isn’t—it requires Jane to just stand there, to stand still with her face turned up, to let herself be kissed. She’s pinned by Sabina’s hands, Sabina’s legs around her waist like a vise. 

It’s a relatively short kiss, and Jane can tell it’s their last. Sabina gentles it more and more, until the press of her lips against Jane’s is so faint it’s almost imperceptible, but Jane feels the promise in it nonetheless. By some miracle, through some sort of tragic alchemy, the comedown banks some of the fire burning under Jane’s skin, evens out her heartbeat into something more settled. When the kiss ends they stay still for long moments, breathing against one another’s mouths and pressing their foreheads together. 

Eventually she opens her eyes, and sees Sabina looking at her fondly but with heat in her gaze.

“Damn, girl,” Sabina murmurs after a beat, brushing the corners of her mouth with her thumb and forefinger. She gives Jane a sheepish grin. “I confess I was not entirely prepared for that.”

“For what?” Jane asks, striving for innocence. Sabina rolls her eyes.

“Don’t get cute. Feel better?” she asks. Jane just nods. “Good.” Sabina pecks her on the nose and just like that it’s over, it’s back to how they were before. Well, mostly. “Now, tea?”

Jane nods again, mute, and steps back so Sabina can get down from the counter. Sabina regards her for another moment, feet kicking against the lower cabinets, head tilted to one side. Jane doesn’t know what she’s looking for or what she sees, but eventually Sabina just shakes her head, gives a brief laugh, and hops down.

“Will you stay the night?” Jane blurts, feeling slightly horrified but also unsurprised to find herself asking. Sabina raises an eyebrow. “Just to sleep. It’s late, and…” she shrugs. “You can stay on the couch if you’d rather.”

Sabina shrugs. “I don’t mind sharing as long as you keep your hands to yourself,” she says, a slight challenge in her eyes. “I confess the idea of going outside right now and sleeping in a cold Agency cot is not super appealing.”

“Your virtue is safe with me,” Jane promises, with a smirk. Sabina just rolls her eyes.

\------

This time, Jane wakes up to the memory of Sabina next to her in the bed, but without the reality of actual Sabina in the bed. She does hear clattering in the kitchen, though, and the air smells blessedly like coffee, so Jane supposes she hasn’t gone far.

Jane does, however, wake with a horrifying, utterly wretched headache; it feels like her brain has been wrapped in chicken wire, grey matter squeezing out to press against the inside of her skull in perfect, excruciating hexagons. She groans and burrows back down into her pillow.

“Good morning,” she hears, along with the sound of something being set on the bedside table. “How are you feeling?”

Jane groans again in response. “I want to die.”

“That’s not too surprising,” Sabina says, not sounding terribly sympathetic. Jane feels weight settle down at the foot of the bed. “If you sit up, there’s coffee and water and paracetamol on the nightstand.”

Jane squints at her through one eye, accusing. “Why did you let me drink so much?” She rolls over experimentally, and her head throbs in protest.

“Well, as I recall you were pretty insistent, and also I’m not your mother,” Sabina says, not unreasonably. Jane hears her sip something, which reminds Jane that there is coffee, which is enough to encourage her to attempt sitting upright. It actually goes better than she thought, and the coffee makes it worth it.

“Better?” Sabina asks, after Jane has had several sips. 

“Much, thank you,” Jane says, giving her a small smile. Sabina seems to be wearing one of Jane’s sweatshirts and nothing else, bare-legged and barefoot the way she always is at home. Jane lets her eyes rove over the expanse of skin, feeling flashes of last night low in her belly.

“How are you feeling otherwise?” Sabina asks, and it’s too casual, too nonchalant; she’s tapping one finger against the side of her coffee mug. 

“Mmm?” Jane asks, questioningly, eyes flicking along Sabina’s collarbone.

“Jane.” The tapping intensifies.

“What?” she asks, and finally looks up to meet Sabina’s eyes.

“Regrets?” Sabina asks baldly, meeting Jane’s gaze head-on.

Jane holds it. “No.”

The tension eases off Sabina’s face. “Good.” She inhales and visibly shakes herself. “Okay, are you hungry? I got eggs and weird French bacon, but also some fruit and radishes in case you’re one of those monsters who cures a hangover with fresh foods.”

“What?” Jane says, stupidly. Apparently that’s… all Sabina is going to say about last night, then.

“You had, like, no food in your apartment, dude. I ran down to the market this morning.” Sabina pats Jane’s leg under the blanket when Jane just stares at her in bewilderment. “I’ll figure it out. Just come out when you’re ready.” 

\------

Jane emerges ten minutes later, after deciding that whatever mental and emotional processing she needs to do is going to take _way_ longer than the time it will take Sabina to make breakfast, especially once the smell of bacon starts emanating from the kitchen. Sabina hands her a plate in the dining room and takes the other for herself; there’s already more coffee and a bowl of radishes and a plate of butter on the table.

The eggs and bacon, like everything else Sabina makes, are fucking delicious, and Jane tells her so, enjoying the way it makes Sabina duck her head and grin.

“I’m sorry, what are you doing?” Jane asks after several minutes of comfortable silence. She can see what Sabina is doing, actually, which is slicing radishes in half, spreading them with butter, and dipping them in sea salt before popping them in her mouth, but it looks so bizarre that she can’t help herself.

Sabina looks down at her plate. “I know it looks weird,” she says. “But my nanny used to make this for me, and I love it. It’s a French thing, apparently: just garden radishes with butter and salt.” She crunches on one. “Something about how the spicy bitterness is smoothed by the butter, plus the salt to lift it…” She shrugs. “It’s good, I swear. Do you want one?”

“Sure,” Jane says, because why not. Sabina holds one out to her, but instead of doing what (she assumes) Sabina expects her to do, which is take it and put it on her plate, Jane leans forward and takes it with her mouth, lips curling just slightly over Sabina’s fingers. She hears Sabina inhale, sharply, as Jane crunches down on the radish.

“I don’t know if this is a game you want to be playing, Kano,” Sabina says after a moment, leaning back in her chair and staring at Jane across the table. She lifts her fingers, the ones Jane licked, to her mouth and runs them on the inside of her lips, then smirks when she sees Jane flush.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jane says mildly, going back to her eggs.

“Sure,” says Sabina, drawing the syllable out, but leaves it alone for the time being.

“Do you have plans for the day?” Jane asks, when they’ve finished breakfast. She’s secretly hoping Sabina will say no, that they can spend the day together wandering around Paris or lounging around the flat (for her own sanity, Jane avoids thinking about the other things they could be doing in the flat).

Sabina bites her lip. “Ah, actually, yes. My nanny is buried here,” she says, looking down at the remainder of the radish plate. “In Paris, I mean. I visit whenever I’m here.”

“Oh,” Jane says. Whatever she thought Sabina was going to say, it wasn’t that. 

“Sorry,” Sabina says, sounding regretful. “I know it’s not, like, the most fun thing in the world, but I don’t get out here very much, and I try to go whenever I can.”

“Would… do you want company?” Jane hears herself offer. Sabina looks at her in surprise.

“Actually, yeah, it’d be nice, but are you sure you’re up for it? I mean, Edgar’s ceremony was literally yesterday.”

“I’d like to, if I’m not intruding.”

“Of course not.” Sabina’s smile is warm. “It’d be nice,” she repeats.

They stop by the outpost so Sabina can shower and change her clothes, and then Sabina guides them, unerringly, onto the Metro and through the quiet residential streets of the Fourteenth to a tiny cemetery. Jane surmises that she’s been here more than a few times. The graveyard itself is quaint and well-kept, with swept stone pathways and worn headstones and tasteful landscaping, restful and calm in the mid-afternoon sunshine.

Sabina is quiet the whole journey, speaking only to the woman selling flowers from the flower cart outside as she buys pink calla lilies wrapped in brown paper. 

They stop in front of a small, unassuming headstone in the northwest corner of the cemetery. The engraving is calming in its simplicity: _Isabelle Dulchain, 1956 - 2001_. Jane lifts her hand to grip Sabina’s shoulder and then retreats, sitting down on a bench underneath a linden tree to give the other woman some space. Sabina crouches to lay the flowers down, and Jane hears the soft murmur of her voice.

After a spell, Sabina comes back to sit next to her on the bench. Jane offers her hand silently, palm-up, and Sabina takes it, threading their fingers together.

“She died when I was eleven,” Sabina says, into the quiet. “And it felt like I lost the only person who ever loved me, who ever knew me. Isa was so… protective and caring, and yet so utterly unfazed by any of my bullshit.” Sabina laughs softly. “I loved her. My parents didn’t care. I mean, they didn’t care about me in general, but they also didn’t care when she died. She was just the help, you know? Like the maid and the driver. But I loved her so much.” Jane squeezes Sabina’s hand. “She was the only one who treated me like I was worth anything, beyond, you know, my trust fund. Who told me that just because I _could_ do something, it didn’t mean I should. Who tried to teach me to do the right thing. In retrospect, I think it’s because she knew my parents wouldn’t.”

“She sounds amazing,” Jane murmurs, after Sabina has been silent for several minutes.

“She was. In the years after she died I sort of lost it. I started skipping school, doing low-key B&E stealing shit from my parents’ rich friends that I didn’t even need to steal. Started smoking and snorting all sorts of things I shouldn’t be smoking and snorting, and throwing my money around, all because nobody cared about me enough to tell me to stop. You know, it’s weird—part of me thinks that if Isa hadn’t died, I might have stayed the course, kept my life on track. I wouldn’t have needed rescuing, and then Charlie wouldn’t have found me. I probably wouldn’t be an Angel.” Jane hums her understanding. “I dunno, it’s a weird thought.”

“What would you want to be doing, if you weren’t an Angel?”

“I have no idea,” Sabina admits. “When I was little I wanted to be an astronaut, but I am nowhere near smart enough to do that. It was mostly because the moon was the farthest I could imagine getting from my family, rather than any love I had for space. Space sounds pretty cold and lonely, honestly.”

“Are they really that bad? Your family?” Jane asks, and then regrets it. Sabina doesn’t talk much about her family and there’s clearly a reason. “Sorry, that was rude. Never mind.”

“It’s fine,” Sabina says. “They’re mostly all horrible, yeah. I think I have a couple of cousins who are sort of decent, who have broken with the family like I have, but I’ve lost track of them.” She eyes Jane. “You clearly haven’t Googled me, or you’d know. My family—I think my great-grandfather—founded Cylla Pharmaceutical. It’s one of the major producers and distributors of narcotics and opioids; we’re right up there with the Sacklers. In fact, we’ve married several Sacklers, which should tell you a lot. My parents and my aunts and uncles, and now my cousins, mostly all stayed in the family business, and that business is pushing the wide-ranging, comprehensive prescription of drugs that addict and kill people, and making billions off of it.” She shakes her head. “It’s all blood money. They’re murderers, and yet their names are plastered over half the museums and universities in New York.”

“Jesus,” Jane mutters. “I didn’t know. I definitely have not Googled you.”

Sabina twists her lips. “Anyway. I’m not in contact with them, I don’t touch that money. I think most of them think I’m dead, or still in prison. Part of me dreams of one day exposing them—except the worst part is that it’s not even a secret. Everyone knows what they’re doing but nobody does anything about it, because everyone in power is already in bed with them or funded by their money. Or both.”

“Sounds like a job for an Angel,” Jane murmurs.

“Maybe,” Sabina says, with a small grin. “Anyway, so all that is to say, if I have any redeeming qualities at all, it is definitely due to that woman resting over there.” She gestures to Isabelle’s grave.

“Tell me more about her,” Jane prompts, and so, among the dappled May sunshine under a linden tree, Sabina does.

\------

Sabina buys a bottle of Tattinger, which she insists is tradition because it was Isabelle’s favorite, on their way back to Jane’s flat. The sun is low in the sky and the shadows are long, falling like distance markers across the sidewalk where they stop for Vietnamese takeout, because Sabina says she doesn’t feel like cooking.

Sabina doesn’t mention returning to the outpost and Jane doesn’t bring it up.

“Come on, hair of the dog,” Sabina says, when Jane tries to demure the proffered glass of champagne once they’re back in her flat. Her hangover, momentarily held off by Sabina’s breakfast and the paracetamol, has returned in full force. “You know, of all the hangover cures, this is the one that actually works,” Sabina insists. “Something about alcohol and the bloodstream and chemistry, I dunno.” Her eyes are sparkling. “Saint told me, I swear.”

Jane sighs and takes the glass, leaving Sabina to plate out their food.

“Santé,” Sabina says as they sit down, holding out her glass.

“À la tienne,” Jane returns, clinking, looking at the sparkling amber liquid and the refracting bubbles. She meets Sabina’s eyes. “To Isabelle.”

“To Edgar,” Sabina returns, with a nod of her head. They drink.

“To friendship,” Jane adds. Sabina’s grin warms the entire room.

“To friendship.”

\------

Jane wakes the following morning feeling _much_ better than she had the day before. It’s partly the absence of the hangover, but it’s mostly the fact that she wakes to find Sabina using her as a body pillow again, legs and arms thrown carelessly about and head pillowed on Jane’s chest, breath still even and regular in her sleep.

Jane allows herself the indulgence of keeping one hand on Sabina’s back while she uses the other to scroll through her phone, waiting for her to wake. She does, eventually, with an inelegant snort.

“Oh,” she says, after taking stock of the situation. “Morning. Uh, sorry.” She looks sheepish. “I’m kind of… koala-y when I sleep. You may have noticed.”

“A _demanding_ koala,” Jane adds, looking down at her fondly. “I don’t mind.”

“Well, good,” Sabina says, before yawning loudly in Jane’s face. “Coffee?” she ventures hopefully.

“I was waiting for you to wake up,” Jane says. “But I can go make some.”

But then Jane’s phone vibrates, and on the bedside table next to her, so does Sabina’s.

“That can’t be good,” Sabina mutters. “Can you hand me?” she requests, gesturing. She’s still mostly flopped over Jane’s midsection. Jane reaches over to pass her the phone before thumbing open her own missive.

It’s a message from Bos, requesting her presence at the outpost this afternoon at 1400, along with an acknowledgement that it’s Sunday and she wouldn’t be asking if it weren’t an emergency.

“You too?” Sabina asks, flipping her phone around so Jane can see the identical message Bos sent to Sabina, plus another pointed line about how Sabina hasn’t been sleeping at the outpost.

“Yeah,” Jane confirms. “Sounds like a job. Should be interesting.” She sighs and stretches a little, enjoying the weight of Sabina all around her. “I don’t really want to go in, though.” Which is unusual, she doesn’t add, but Sabina probably knows anyway.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Sabina admits. “But we’ve got the morning, at least.”

“What’s left of it,” Jane says, teasingly. 

Sabina rolls her eyes. “You say that like it’s a waste. What could be better than sleeping in?” 

Jane, against her better judgement and breaking all the unspoken rules she and Sabina seem to have arrived at between yesterday and today, shifts her hips and raises an eyebrow. “I can think of a few things.”

Sabina rubs her nose and squints at Jane. “Okay. Uh.” She exhales a gusty breath. “So, do we need to… talk about this?” she asks, haltingly.

“Do we?” Jane returns. She knows it’s mean and probably childish, but Sabina is _here_ , in her _bed_ , and Jane is frustrated. Sexually.

“I mean, I didn’t think so, but here you are, saying shit like that,” Sabina says. Jane raises an eyebrow. “You see,” Sabina continues, putting her phone to the side and shifting her weight so that Jane is even more pinned down by her hips, “you keep pushing me.” Sabina licks her lips, and all of a sudden she seems—predatory, almost feral, looming over Jane. Jane feels her pulse jump. “On purpose. And it makes me wonder what you would do,” Sabina rolls them over in one smooth motion, so that Jane is on top, propping herself up on her elbows, one leg in between Sabina’s thighs, “if you were the one calling the shots.” She grins up at Jane, wolfish and brash, toppy even when she’s on the bottom. “So? Your move.”

“Um,” Jane says, eloquently.

Sabina stretches underneath her, reaches up to grab at the headboard and pop her shoulders, shifts her weight so that Jane settles down even more into the gap between her legs. The vision sears itself into Jane’s brain: Sabina Wilson, in a wifebeater and a pair of Jane’s shorts, arms above her head gripping the headboard with her hips canted open, biting her lip. Jane swallows. “Well?” Sabina presses. “You think it’s just you with a goddamn raging hard-on and a declining supply of willpower?” She grinds up against Jane’s thigh just a little, almost like she can’t help herself. “It is so,” she inhales, a little breathy catch in her voice, “fucking hard to keep my hands to myself, especially when you say shit like that. If you keep pushing, if you keep giving me those little _looks_ , eventually I’m going to stop being able to.” Sabina exhales and looks up at Jane. “You ready for that?”

Jane tilts her head, pulse pounding in her ears. She has two options here, she knows—call Sabina’s bluff and raise, or back down. She imagines lowering herself down on top of Sabina’s body, imagines running hands up underneath her tank top and down below the waistband of her shorts, imagines trailing kisses across Sabina’s collar bone and leaving bite bruises on the insides of her thighs. Jane suspects, right now, that Sabina would let her do it all, and more. Even if it’s just to make a point.

There are rules against this, Jane knows, and what’s worse is that she knows _why_ the rules are there. Knows that if she and Sabina cross this line, they probably shouldn’t work together, because when you’re out in the field there’s no room for any feelings other than concentration and focus. And what she feels right now is the opposite of focus; she feels wild, out of control, impulsive and terrified and giddy all at once.

“We shouldn’t,” Jane says eventually, but she presses up with the leg in between Sabina’s legs as she says it. “Especially not with this job.”

Sabina huffs a laugh that’s also partly a groan. “See, that’s what I’ve been saying,” she says, but she arches her back and grinds down harder against the top of Jane’s thigh nevertheless. “ _Fuck_. Jane.”

It’s too much; it’s undoing, seeing Sabina like this, hearing her like this; Jane drops down on her elbows, lowers herself over Sabina until she can bury her face in her neck. It would be so easy to start something, right now, so easy to tilt her head up and catch Sabina’s lips in a kiss, to tell herself it’ll be just one kiss. But there’s no doubt as to where they’d end up afterward.

Still. “I really want to kiss you right now,” Jane murmurs, still against Sabina’s neck, mouth open.

“I know,” Sabina says, rolling her hips, running her hands up Jane’s back, grazing just slightly against her ass. “I think we both know where that ends, though. And it’s not a relatively tame makeout in your kitchen.”

Sex. It ends in sex, and what has finally become clear to Jane is that it isn’t that Sabina doesn’t want it, or that Jane doesn’t want it, or even that they can’t have it—they could, and could probably get away with it, for long enough at least—it’s that they really, really shouldn’t. Not if they ever want to work together again and get out alive. And judging from Bosley’s message they’re both getting assigned to something together, and soon.

Jane summons her willpower and rolls over, off Sabina, so that she’s lying flat on her back next to her, staring up at the ceiling.

“Fuck,” she says, eloquently. After a moment, she feels Sabina take her hand.

“I know, babygirl,” Sabina says, and she sounds just as tortured as Jane feels. “I’m hoping it gets easier, because you have been driving me wild for the past two days. No promises, though.”

“You’ve been driving me wild for months,” Jane admits, still to the ceiling.

“I mean, same, really,” Sabina says. She brings Jane’s hand up to her mouth and kisses the back of it. “But we’re stuck, for now. Even I’m not stupid enough to fuck you right before we’re sent out on a job together.”

“This is horrible,” Jane says.

“Yes it is,” Sabina agrees.

\------

They don’t fuck; instead Sabina makes lunch, and they show up at the outpost at 13:45 that afternoon and make their way to the conference room as instructed. More Angels trickle in: Jane recognizes Rachel and Danae from the outpost, plus Mika from the Rio job, and Akiko from Montreal.

Sabina nods her own greetings to Mika and does some sort of complicated handshake-backslap greeting with a fifth Angel Jane doesn’t recognize, who introduces herself as Veera.

Jane counts seven of them total, which is a relatively large job but not the biggest one she’s ever been on. She makes eye contact with Sabina across the room and raises her eyebrows; Sabina shrugs.

Bos shows up at 13:58 with the same Swedish (Jane’s decided he’s Swedish) Bosley Jane had worked with last month, and they give them the rundown.

It’s a job that’s been planned for months, plotted out and surveilled and gamed within an inch of its life. Akiko is their inside woman, hired by a Japanese software corporation as an unassuming intern to gain access to shareholder profiles and holding information. Thanks to her, they have all the floor plans, schedules, and event planner details they need. Unfortunately for everyone, the big yearly investor party is going down tomorrow night and they’ve just gotten wind of a heightened security presence due to hostile Russian actors; Rachel and Danae and Mika and Veera were planned as the two pairs of backup waiting in the wings if Akiko needs help or extraction, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to be enough given the anticipated firepower. “So you’re bringing on an extra team,” Jane finishes. Bos nods. 

“Why us?” Sabina asks baldly. “Sorry, I just mean technically I’m just visiting? I thought we were going back to LA soon.” She addresses the last bit to Bos directly.

“You speak Russian. Also, it’s hard to find pairs that work well together on short notice, much less pairs that are in the same city,” Bos says. “After your little display on Friday, we figured you and Jane would be an obvious choice.”

Jane almost mutters, “Really?” but restrains herself; Bosley’s gaze, flicking between her and Sabina, is telling them not to push it.

Sabina just nods. “Okay,” she says. “What’s the infill plan?” And the meeting devolves into logistics.

\------

Veera and Mika are posing as Shareholder Arm Candy and Rachel and Danae are posing as cater-waiters, which leaves Sabina and Jane in the role of eyes-in-the-sky snipers, providing rooftop surveillance and additional ground support if necessary. As they’re suiting up in their standard black the afternoon of the mission, Bos comes to find them.

“I need to talk to you,” she says, closing the door behind her.

“Which of us?” Sabina asks. “Me?”

“Both of you,” Bos says. Her face is unreadable, which tells Jane enough; she stops lacing up her boots and turns to give Bos her full attention.

“Well?” Sabina asks after a beat, when Bos has done nothing but look at them.

“Is there something going on here I should know about?” Bos asks flatly. Next to Jane, Sabina stills. “Look, I hate this as much as you probably do, and I don’t care what you do in your personal lives—individually, that is. But if it’s relevant to the mission, I need to know.” Bos looks each of them in the eye. “My goal here is to make sure you, and the other Angels, make it out alive. Nothing more.”

Jane flips through a variety of responses in her head, not daring to look at Sabina. Technically they _have_ broken protocol, but not seriously. She doesn’t know whether forthright honestly or stonewalling is the better tack here. 

Thankfully Sabina does. “Jesus, woman,” she says after a beat, sounding rueful. “No wonder they promoted you to Bosley.”

Bos raises an eyebrow. “Call it _female intuition_ ,” she says, inflecting the phrase just enough that Jane can tell what she really thinks of the idea. “Also, you have to be sleeping somewhere and it is definitely not the outpost; it doesn’t take an internationally-trained spy to figure this out. So? Do I need to bench one or both of you today?”

It’s the most forthright manner in which anyone has ever asked Jane about who she’s sleeping with; it’d be refreshing, if it weren’t so horrifying.

“No,” she and Sabina say simultaneously. 

“Nothing’s happened,” Sabina continues after a pause, which is _almost_ but not quite the truth. “We’re just,” she waves her hands, “figuring it out, still.” She comes to stand closer to Jane, but doesn’t touch her.

Bosley’s eyes narrow. “So, to clarify,” she says, “in Martinique, you weren’t—”

“No,” Sabina says firmly. Jane shakes her head.

Bos nods. “And you are not currently—”

“God,” Sabina groans. “No, okay? We,” she coughs and looks at Jane, “uh, we have acknowledged the existence of sexual attraction.” She runs an agitated hand through her hair. “But nothing that would compromise our ability to work together.”

Bos raises an eyebrow.

“We’re not fucking,” Jane says, because Sabina is obviously not going to be as explicit as Bos wants, and now that they’ve cracked open Pandora’s Box Jane knows there’s only one way this ends. “We’re not fucking. Okay? I kissed her the night of Edgar’s ceremony, when I was drunk and sad. That’s it.” She looks at Bosley. “Satisfied?”

“To be clear, I also kissed you back. Several times,” Sabina adds, under her breath. Jane rolls her eyes. “I just don’t want you to get all the credit. Or the blame,” she adds, looking back at Bosley.

“Okay,” Bos says after a beat. “Well, that little tidbit aside, if you’re not actively engaged in a sexual relationship at this time, and have not in the past and do not plan to in the future—” she eyes Jane and Sabina both as she says this last part, “then I have nothing more to say about that. You’re clearly aware of where the Agency stands on it, which relieves me.”

“So… we’re good to go?” Sabina asks, hopefully.

“Not quite,” Bos says. “If you recall, Agency policy specifically mentions employees in a sexual or romantic relationship.” This time, she doesn’t meet Jane's or Sabina’s eyes.

“Yeah,” Sabina says. Jane waits for the other shoe to drop; it doesn’t take long. “Oh. _Oh_.”

“We’re not—” Jane starts, but bites off the rest of what she was going to say.

“Um,” Sabina says, just as eloquently. She half-turns toward Jane, trying to angle her body away from Bosley’s gaze. Her hand is almost brushing Jane’s, but not quite. “Listen, I…” but she trails off. They stare at one another helplessly; Jane doesn’t know which would be worse right now, for Sabina to declare feelings or the absence of them. Even the existence of this conversation, literally a day and a half after the best kiss of Jane’s life and 36 hours of intense sexual frustration, is making her stomach churn.

Bos waits, but when Jane and Sabina do nothing but stare at one another, eventually she sighs. “This is like watching baby horses try to walk for the first time, you know,” she says to them, conversationally. “So awkward you almost forget it’s adorable. Look, you both clearly have some stuff to figure out, but for the moment I’m satisfied that it is not going to blow up in our faces tonight, which is my primary concern.” At that, Sabina turns back to look at her. “I’m clearing you both for the mission tonight, but we are not finished with this discussion.” Bosley makes eye contact with each of them. “I suggest you box all this up for now and don’t bring it into the job, but don’t box it up for much longer.”

Then she nods at them and departs, leaving only the faintest trail of Jo Malone perfume hanging in the air.

“Oh my god,” Jane whispers.

“I know, right,” Sabina whispers back. “It’s like she knows _everything_.”

“What do we do?” Jane asks.

Sabina goes back to strapping on her thigh holster. “I mean, you heard her,” she says, avoiding Jane’s eyes. “We box it up, for now.”

“Yeah, okay,” Jane says, not entirely convinced that it’s possible.

\------

To Jane’s mild surprise, though, she manages just fine. Before the team leaves the outpost they link all their sub-dermal transmitters, which means that the whole team can hear one another and very effectively precludes any personal discussion Jane and Sabina might have. But Jane also finds, as she runs through her mental checklist and settles herself during the van ride, that she drops perfectly well into mission mode: hyper-focused, strategic, running through her plans and her backup plans and her backup backup plans. It’s Akiko’s show, obviously, and if all goes to plan the extra backup will have been unneeded and superfluous, but Jane’s (Edgar’s) mantra is to hope for the best but plan for the worst. She’s aware of Sabina the way she’s aware of the other Angels, has catalogued all their strengths and weaknesses in case she needs to jump in anywhere. But she and Sabina move just fine around one another without any tension, and when Jane meets Sabina’s eyes across the van ten seconds before the drop, she sees nothing but focus and resolve there.

Thirty minutes into the party, it becomes extremely clear that it is _not_ going all to plan.

“Uh, guys,” Sabina says, from her vantage point next to Jane. She’s got her hood up to hide the blonde flash of her hair, so all Jane can see are the binoculars. “Is it just me, or did Mr. Fancy CEO Guy just… yep, he’s heading down to the safe. That can’t be good.” Jane and Sabina are parked up on the roof, watching the party guests and the five undercover Angels move around the elegant soirée from fifteen stories up.

“It’s not,” Danae says grimly. “I’m trying to get down there but there’s too many people.” Jane sees her, weaving in and out of the gathering but getting waylaid by party guests and men in suits and security.

“Guys,” Sabina says again, “I’m losing him, I can’t follow him once he’s underground.” She pauses. “Bosley? Stay or follow?”

“Stay,” Swedish Bosley says. He’s technically running point; Bos is on standby for support and looped into the comms, but she’s not calling the shots.

“Roger,” Sabina says. “Well, I can tell you that a _ton_ of firepower just followed him down: these guys look like they work for the KGB. You know, ugly, giant foreheads, Russian-looking. Guns, obviously.”

“Sapozhnin’s private security,” Akiko murmurs. “This is bad.”

“For Fancy CEO Guy, or for our mission?” Sabina asks.

“Both,” Akiko says, sounding pissed. “Shit. I’m going in.”

“Veera, follow her,” Swedish Bosley orders. “This was not part of the plan, we don’t have eyes in that room.”

“On it,” Veera says, and follows Akiko down.

“Jane and Sabina, you’re up while Veera and Danae are with Akiko and Mr. Yamashita,” Bosley says. “Keep an eye on the party, especially Mr. Yamashita’s wife. Cover Mika and Rachel.”

“Got it,” Jane confirms, rebalancing her rifle and peering back through the scope.

There’s silence for several minutes, and then.

“Do you guys see that?” Rachel says, right as Jane says, “Is that...” and Sabina says, “Oh, _shit_.” Down below, someone shrieks, and then it seems like _everyone_ is shrieking.

“Jane and Sabina, get down there, _now_ ,” Swedish Bosley snaps. “This is going south fast. There’s more Russians than we thought and some new agents I don’t even recognize. Get to Akiko and get her out.”

Jane and Sabina rappel down the building and into the fray.

Looking back on it later, Jane’s not all that surprised, but in the heat of the fight, it does surprise her. She and Sabina stay side by side, slowly but steadily making their way to the cluster of security guards surrounding Akiko, and they move like an extension of the other’s limbs. Sabina fells one particularly nasty-looking Russian so Jane can take out the guy behind him, and when she spins around, Sabina’s there already to cover her as she grabs another clip off the fallen guard. They don’t even speak, except for one time when Sabina says, “Jane,” and Jane says, “Got it,” before taking out Mrs. Yamashita with her tranquilizer gun. Other than that, they move steadily forward, silent except for the smack of flesh against flesh, a blur of teamwork so good Jane feels like she’s fighting side-by-side and back-to-back with her double.

Again, looking back on it it’s not surprising: Jane knows Sabina’s fight style better than pretty much anyone, she guesses, and Sabina definitely knows hers; Jane has spent the better part of two months being acutely aware of Sabina’s body and how she holds herself and how she moves. Jane has, she realizes now, a tiny piece of her brain that seems entirely focused on knowing where Sabina is at all times. She anticipates the moves Sabina makes before she makes them, and is there waiting for her when Sabina’s finished. And when Jane kicks her way through the last guard to Akiko and the tranq-ed Mrs. Yamashita, Sabina rolls right along with her, elbowing the guy Jane knocks down in the face like she’s finishing Jane’s sentence.

“Thanks,” Jane says, pivoting to Mrs. Yamashita.

“No prob,” Sabina says, making her way to Akiko.

“Holy shit, guys,” Akiko says. There’s blood on her face and she’s holding her arm awkwardly, but she’s standing upright, which is a good sign. “I thought people were making it up the other day, but I guess not.”

“What?” Jane asks, panting, as she zip-ties Mrs. Yamashita’s hands behind her back. 

“You two,” Akiko says. “That was pretty wild, watching you.”

Jane doesn’t know what to say, and Sabina shrugs.

“Got him,” Danae interrupts, depositing a similarly tranq-ed and cuffed Mr. Yamashita on the ground next to his wife.

“The Russians?” Swedish Bosley asks.

“Down,” Danae, Rachel, and Mika all report.

“The rest of the Japanese security team?”

“Also down,” Veera and Jane say.

“Excellent,” Swedish Bosley says. “Let’s exfil the targets and get them to the safe house. The client is waiting for them.” He pauses. “Good work, everyone. That could have been much worse if you had not all worked well together.”

Above them a chopper approaches, and Jane and Sabina share a single, exhilarated grin.

\------

By the time they drop off the Yamashitas and make it back to the outpost, it’s nearly one in the morning. Saint is waiting for them all, but he seems mostly preoccupied by Akiko’s arm, so Jane and Sabina almost slip away successfully. But Bos is waiting for them in the elevator bay, because of course she is.

“Nice work,” she says, looking them up and down.

“Thanks,” Jane says. 

“I’m glad to see I wasn’t wrong about you two,” Bos continues, deliberately blocking their exit. Sabina groans. 

“Bos, look. It’s late and we are gross and sweaty and I think Jane has a rope burn she’s hiding from Saint. Can we just… shower and change and sleep, and you can,” Sabina pauses, “I don’t know, berate us some more tomorrow after our debriefs and After Actions?”

Bos thins her lips. “I came to tell you that you and I are being called back to LA tomorrow,” she says. “Right after the debrief. Wheels up at 1300.”

“Oh,” Sabina says, sounding thrown.

“I know it’s not ideal, after today,” Bos says, and her eyes gleam with understanding. Jane doesn’t know if _today_ means the mission, their collective exhaustion, or the surreal conversation from this afternoon; possibly all three. “It’s above my pay grade, I’m afraid,” Bos continues.

“Oh,” Sabina says again.

“What I am saying is,” Bos sighs, “is yes, go shower and _sleep_ ,” she looks between them with eyes that say she knows exactly where Sabina’s going to sleep, “and say your goodbyes early. I’ll deal with Saint for now.” 

“Thanks. For the heads up,” Jane says. Something unhappy is settling down into her stomach like a stone. Beside her, she feels Sabina brush the back of her hand, just slightly. Jane, out of fucks to give, grabs it and holds on, daring Bos to say anything.

Bos just shakes her head. “Look, I am not unsympathetic here,” she says, sounding almost regretful. “I think it would be better if the two of you had a day or two more to talk, frankly. But.” She shrugs. “We do what we must.” She nods at them. “See you tomorrow.”

\------

Jane and Sabina don’t speak as they shower and change. Jane is physically and emotionally wrung out; she suspects Sabina is much the same. The soap and water sting her rope burn and she hisses in pain at the locker room sink as she washes it out, eyes smarting.

“You should have had Saint look at that,” Sabina says quietly, coming up behind her. 

“I just wanna go home,” Jane admits, turning to look at Sabina. Her wet hair is sticking everywhere, up in some ridiculous snarl that somehow still looks charming. “You coming?”

Sabina holds out her hand for Jane’s non-injured one. “Of course I am.”

\------

Their separate debriefings are scheduled for 0930, so they have a little time the next morning, but not very much. Sabina, to Jane’s amazement, wakes first, and she brings Jane a cup of coffee and sits down at the foot of the bed in a poetic parallel to Saturday morning, the morning after their kiss.

“Thank you,” Jane murmurs. Sabina watches her in silence.

“So, this was not really how I thought the past five days were going to go,” Sabina offers eventually. She looks soft in the morning sunlight, wearing the same sweatshirt of Jane’s that she’s been wearing around the flat since Friday. Jane’s already thinking of it as Sabina’s sweatshirt.

“Me neither,” Jane says. “What are we gonna do now?”

Sabina shrugs. “I don’t know what we can do, really, other than keep doing what we’re doing.”

Jane nods. “Bos seemed to think we should talk.”

Sabina snorts. “I think Bos is over-estimating how articulate I am about this kind of thing,” she admits, looking down at her coffee. “I mean, I can try if you want, but.” She shakes her head. “Everything is still all… twisty, tangly. I have all this… _stuff_ tangled up in you and I don’t really know what to say about it yet.”

“Have you ever done this before?” Jane finds herself asking, before she can think better of it. “With another Angel, I mean.”

Sabina looks at her evenly. “No. It’s too risky.” The implication that Jane’s worth the risk is very much unsaid, but acknowledged. “I assume you haven’t either.”

Jane snorts. “Not bloody likely.”

“Well, so we’re both in uncharted waters,” Sabina says. 

“I’ll miss you,” Jane offers. “It feels wrong that you’re going back to LA.”

“I know,” Sabina says. “I thought we’d at least have today.” She drains her coffee cup and sets it on the ground. “I’ll miss you too,” she says.

Jane doesn’t know what to do; she wants to reach out, envelop Sabina in her arms, drag her down into the sheets and cover her with kisses. Or maybe she doesn’t; maybe she wants to step back and put some professional distance between the two of them, wants things to go back to the way they were before. 

She doesn’t want that either.

She just doesn’t want Sabina to leave.

Sabina watches her, and maybe she sees the mental struggle play out on Jane’s face and maybe she doesn’t.

Either way, after a few moments she mutters, “Fuck it,” and crawls into Jane’s space, crawls into her lap so her legs are bracketing Jane’s and they’re eye to eye. The weird tension between them retreats, until it’s just her and Sabina and the morning sunshine and the smell of coffee floating between them.

“Hi,” Jane says with a smile, putting her mug down on the nightstand so she can settle her hands on top of Sabina’s bare thighs.

“Hi,” Sabina says. “Look, I’ve got to go back and change and pack up my stuff before the debrief. I don’t know if I’ll see you after, so. This is goodbye.”

“For now,” Jane says, enjoying the feeling of Sabina’s weight in her lap, and trying to ignore the concept of “goodbye.”

“For now,” Sabina agrees. She bites her lip, mutters “Fuck it” again, and takes Jane’s face in her hands. Her eyes are serious. “I can’t resist you,” she murmurs, and then she’s kissing Jane goodbye.

Jane feels herself sigh into it; it’s soft and fond and objectively quite a short kiss, but it’s enough that every single one of her nerves starts humming. 

Sabina pulls back too soon. She holds Jane’s eye contact for a long beat, and then nods to herself.

“Okay,” she says. “I gotta go,” and she extracts herself from Jane’s lap. Jane watches from the bed as Sabina sheds her sweatshirt and starts hunting around for her pants and socks, enjoying the way the sunlight gleams along her skin.

Dressed, Sabina pauses in the doorway of the bedroom, looking back at Jane. “Au revoir, Anne-Marie,” she murmurs.

“Au revoir, Brigitte,” Jane returns, smiling a little too blearily, voice a little too choked.

When Sabina leaves, when Jane hears the front door to the flat shut behind her, Jane knows she should get up and make breakfast and prepare for the day, but if instead she sinks back down into her bed and has a little cry first, then she’s the only one who knows.


End file.
